New York City is about to get rid of about 75% of its pandemic-era outdoor dining structures

During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the streetscape of many major cities changed drastically as restaurant and bar operators built outdoor structures on and next to the sidewalk outside of their restaurants, including New York City. Now, several years later, New York is looking to standardize these structures as part of the new Dining Out NYC program.

The program, which began accepting applications from restaurant and bar operators in March, just wrapped up its application phase last Friday, on Aug. 3. According to the New York City Hospitality Alliance, the New York City Department of Transportation only received 3,226 applications, even though more than 12,000 restaurants and bars participated in the pandemic-era emergency outdoor dining program.

Restaurants that have applied to be part of Dining Out NYC will have 30 days of the approval of their application to change their setup to match the new guidelines, and operators that either don’t apply and are not approved will have to remove their dining structures. Establishments that fail to do so will be fined $500 for a first offense and $1,000 for subsequent offenses.    

"Outdoor dining saved countless jobs and businesses during the pandemic and fundamentally changed the way New Yorkers experience their city and their neighborhoods, and helped reinvent our city's restaurant scene," NYC Department of small business services acting commissioner Dynishal Gross, said in a statement. "Dining Out NYC takes the best parts of outdoor dining and combines them with common-sense ways to keep our streets safe, clean, and prosperous.”

The city had been looking to make outdoor dining a permanent part of the city’s streetscape since fall 2020, during former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s term,” when he said in an interview that the outdoor dining program “could be part of the life of the city for years to come.”

Under new guidelines, however, the outdoor dining program will look different. For example, fully covered sheds are no longer allowed outside, and instead restaurants will either need to apply to create a partially covered or al fresco roadway setup, or a sidewalk setup. Sidewalk setups will be available year-round, while roadway dining setups will be seasonal from April 1 to the end of November. Operators will also need to pay a $1,050 four-year license fee for roadway or sidewalk setups, or $2,100 for businesses that want to do both. The Department of Transportation has also said that operators will have to pay an “annual revocable consent fee” based on the size and location of their outdoor dining setup.

Members of the New York City hospitality community have been surprised that the Department of Transportation received so few applications, and suggests that the city work with business owners and possibly extend the now-past deadline:

“There are many parts of the new outdoor dining law that are much better than the pre-pandemic sidewalk café law, but despite the Department of Transportation’s outreach and collaboration with restaurants, too small a percentage of eligible small businesses have applied to participate in the Dining Out NYC program,” the New York City Hospitality Alliance said in a statement. “So, the city should analyze why, make changes to some rules and application procedures, including extending the application deadline to help achieve their goal of having the biggest and most inclusive outdoor dining program in the country.”

New York City is not alone in trying to update its COVID-era outdoor dining programs. In Jan. 2023, San Francisco released new rules for outdoor dining setups, including limiting the number of parking spots operators can occupy and charging for them; Chicago brought back outdoor dining in summer 2023 with new revised rules; and Los Angeles just announced an extension to apply to the Al Fresco dining program, which is similar to New York City’s program.

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