{"id":125051,"date":"2026-02-06T13:03:18","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T13:03:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/125051\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T13:03:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T13:03:18","slug":"speaker-menin-says-she-will-revive-year-round-outdoor-dining-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/125051\/","title":{"rendered":"Speaker Menin says she will revive year-round outdoor dining program"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\"City\t\t\t<\/p>\n

City Council Speaker Julie Menin speaking at an Association for a Better New York breakfast event. Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2026.<\/p>\n

Credit John McCarten\/NYC Council Media Unit<\/p>\n

New Yorkers may once again be able to enjoy outdoor dining<\/a> all year long if City Council Speaker Julie Menin has anything to say about it.\n<\/p>\n

During a Wednesday speech before the Association for a Better New York (ABNY), Menin announced that she intends to significantly reform the seasonal outdoor dining program<\/a> established by her predecessor, Adrienne Adams, and former Mayor Eric Adams in 2023.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will finally fix the city\u2019s outdoor dining program to make it year-round and reduce the regulatory burdens for restaurants,\u201d Menin said. \u201cThese measures will help small businesses survive and adapt by clearing up policies of the past that can lead to closures and job loss.\u201d<\/p>\n

Menin plans to essentially replace the current program via a bill introduced<\/a> by City Council Member Lincoln Restler (D-Brooklyn) last year.<\/p>\n

It would undo a change to the city\u2019s outdoor dining policies that led to a dramatic drop in the number of restaurants participating in the program since the seasonal version rolled out. The current program prohibits restaurants from leaving their roadside dining sheds on city streets during December, January, February, and March.<\/p>\n

\"PatronsPatrons eat at an outdoor dining shed in New York.File photo by Dean Moses<\/p>\n

Just 400 restaurants<\/a> \u2014 300 on sidewalk and 100 roadside \u2014 completed the full application process for the program last year, which entails paying thousands of dollars in fees upfront. Another 2,600 received conditional approval, meaning they were allowed to operate on the condition that they would finish the application and pay the fees.<\/p>\n

Last year marked a sizable drop-off from the program\u2019s peak of roughly 8,000 participants during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic \u2014 when the city first introduced outdoor dining.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Adams administration and the bureaucracy destroyed outdoor dining, and it\u2019s time for us to bring it back,\u201d Restler told amNewYork. \u201cOutdoor dining is great for neighborhood restaurants. It\u2019s great for the workers in the industry. And it\u2019s great for street life in our neighborhoods.\u201d<\/p>\n

Restler\u2019s legislation, which did not receive a vote before the end of the last council session, would remove seasonal restrictions on roadway dining setups and allow a broader range of eateries to participate in the program \u2014 including grocery stores. It would allow restaurants with smaller footprints to have larger outdoor dining set-ups.<\/p>\n

The measure also aims to make the application process and rules for setting up the structures less onerous for restaurants.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cOur goal here is for outdoor dining to work and for restaurants and neighborhoods to benefit from it,\u201d he said. \u201cThe seasonal nature of the program has been the single biggest obstacle for restaurants to participate because they don\u2019t have the space to store outdoor dining structures. The application process is onerous and burdensome. The cost is exorbitant.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Council Member Lincoln Restler.Photo by Dean Moses<\/p>\n

Although Restler already introduced the bill last session, he said he will re-introduce it \u2014 a procedural step lawmakers must take when a new legislative session begins \u2014 during the council\u2019s next stated meeting next Thursday.<\/p>\n

The speaker\u2019s move was welcomed by Andrew Rigie, executive director of the New York City Hospitality Alliance.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWe applaud her commitment to bringing back year-round outdoor dining and cutting red tape \u2013 a vital opportunity that helps restaurants, workers, and neighborhoods thrive,\u201d Rigie said in a statement to amNewYork. \u201cWe look forward to working with Speaker Menin and the City Council to ensure the program is reformed in a way that is fair and sustainable for communities across the five boroughs,\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"City Council Speaker Julie Menin speaking at an Association for a Better New York breakfast event. Wednesday, Feb.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":125052,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[446,54379,301,37503,54380,2400,9,24,63,28588,134,136,135],"class_list":{"0":"post-125051","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-staten-island","8":"tag-adrienne-adams","9":"tag-andrew-rigie","10":"tag-city-council","11":"tag-city-council-speaker-julie-menin","12":"tag-city-council-member-lincoln-restler","13":"tag-mayor-eric-adams","14":"tag-new-york","15":"tag-new-york-city","16":"tag-nyc","17":"tag-outdoor-dining","18":"tag-staten-island","19":"tag-staten-island-headlines","20":"tag-staten-island-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125051\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}