Yesterday, the City Council repaired a very bad error that it committed three years ago in restricting outdoor dining sheds in the city, a restriction that has seen a 90% drop in the number of outdoor eateries that prospered during COVID. Hopefully, the restaurants will use this opportunity to return to the streets and the sidewalks, expanding again their spread.
In 2003, it was Speaker Adrienne Adams leading the way to forbid roadbed sheds during the colder months, meaning that restaurants had the onerous task of breaking down, then storing during the winter and then rebuilding the structures every year, which few have chosen to do. Where once there were as many at 8,000 outdoor food establishments, that has fallen to about 800.
Now it is Speaker Julie Menin spearheading a chance for a revival of the popular feature. A bill from Councilman Lincoln Restler passed on vote of 37-5 removing seasonal restrictions on roadbed cafes. Weatherproofing and winterizing of the sheds will now be permitted. On a similar tally of 37-4, Councilwoman Gale Brewer’s bill lets the sidewalk cafes be enclosed from Nov. 30 through March 31, another needed reform.
New Yorkers do in fact eat during the winter months and sometimes they like to patronize restaurants for fine dining or causal food, but the prohibition on outdoor dining during the snowy months reduced the number of available tables, not just during the cold season, but year round, as the break down/storage/build up costs were just too high for businesses that operate on an exceedingly slim margin.
As one of the only purely good things to come out of COVID (work from home is a decidedly mixed blessing) outdoor dining started as an emergency experiment under Mayor Bill de Blasio in June 2020 called Open Restaurants and it thrived spectacularly. But after three years, Speaker Adams shut it down with the seasonally limited Dining Out NYC program, despite Mayor Eric Adams preferring a permanent, 12-month system, and even with warnings from these and other quarters that the winter hiatus would be a huge hurdle. The speaker had the votes and the mayor didn’t and the restaurants lost out.
As predicted, the seasonally restricted Dining Out NYC has been but a shadow of its year-round predecessor. Now the new speaker is restoring a 12-month season for outdoor eating and the new mayor, Zohran Mamdani, is on board.
Changing the law is the easy part. Getting restaurateurs to now move back into the roadbeds and sidewalks will not be as simple. Yes, the paperwork is being reduced and the fees will now be spread out, but there’s no way to know how many will take advantage of the option to add new tables and seating.
Menin promised that she would undo this mistake against winter dining and she has delivered, but we trust that the spark of optimism behind the original COVID outdoor dining program hasn’t been extinguished by the long years of wrongheaded city government restrictions and limitations.
There’s no intention by us to be downers during a time of renewed hope, but innovation cannot always be replicated. Still, we will be very happy to be wrong on this and will thoroughly enjoy having plenty of outdoor meals when it gets cold again.
