City Council Speaker Julie Menin has good news for the restaurant industry.

The council plans to pass legislation that will make outdoor dining sheds open the entire year. 

What You Need To Know

The City Council plans to pass legislation that will make outdoor dining sheds open the entire year

Outdoor dining exploded during the pandemic as businesses looked to survive amid social distancing rules. But in 2023, the council passed legislation making outdoor dining a permanent and regulated program with strict guidelines on designs and fees

As of April of last year, about 600 restaurants applied for roadway dining setups, while about 2,000 applied for sidewalk setups, according to the city’s Department of Transportation

“We are going to fix the outdoor dining program and make it year-round,” Menin said.

“These measures are going to help small businesses adapt and survive by basically clearing up measures of the past that can lead to closures and job loss,” she continued.

Outdoor dining exploded during the pandemic as businesses looked to survive amid social distancing rules. 

But in 2023, the council passed legislation making outdoor dining a permanent and regulated program with strict guidelines on designs and fees. 

Under the program, restaurants can operate sidewalk setups year-round, but roadway café sheds are limited from April to November. 

“So many restaurants couldn’t afford to participate. There was too much red tape,” Andrew Riggie, the executive director of the NYC Hospitality Alliance, said.

Riggie said the current program is too strict and costly for businesses. 

“Allow restaurants to do year-round roadway dining so they don’t have the expense of setting up an outdoor dining structure only to break it down, put it in storage, pay for it for many months and then pay to set it back up.,” he said.

Before the permanent program, there were 12,000 outdoor dining structures. 

As of April of last year, about 600 restaurants applied for roadway dining setups, while about 2,000 applied for sidewalk setups, according to the city’s Department of Transportation. 

Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Wednesday seemed to have an appetite for the plan. 

“Yeah, yeah. I do support outdoor dining year-round.” 

Last year, Councilman Lincoln Restler introduced legislation to return the program to its COVID-era form. Menin plans to advance the bill. 

As for anyone worried about the impact on parking, Menin said: “First of all, we’re not going to be taking parking spots.“

“We have a number of ideas to make sure that for those areas where districts feel there’s over-saturation, we have a couple of ideas we’re going to introduce to address that,” she continued.