The streets and sidewalks of New York City could look quite different starting August 3.
This is the deadline for restaurants to sign up for the city’s new ‘outdoor dining’ program or dismantle their structures occupying streets and sidewalks.
After four years of free and loosely regulated outdoor dining, the new program overseen by the city’s Department of Transportation will add fees, limit the number of seats on sidewalks, and require that the structures set up on the streets follow a pre-approved design.
“People were building like crazy, you could build all over the block if the owners wanted,” said Manuel Colon, owner of Manny’s Bistro on the Upper West Side, to Gothamist, who expects to lose half of his 24 outdoor seats. “It was a bit out of control. The new rules will be much more efficient for everyone.”
The regulations come after two years of prolonged discussions in the City Council, in the media, and in other public forums about rats, parking spaces, and safety concerns related to outdoor dining. Restaurant owners are divided.
Restaurant Owners Are Divided
“I’m going to lose my street-side seats, which unfortunately are the most popular seats,” said Samantha DiStefano, whose restaurant Mama Fox in Bedford-Stuyvesant is the latest of several she has managed in the metropolitan area for nearly 30 years, to Gothamist.
“I don’t know any small business that can afford to have a seasonal structure on the street,” DiStefano said. “Where am I going to get $5,000, $6,000, $7,000 twice a year to pay someone to build it and take it down? And then, where am I going to store it and how much is that going to cost? It’s completely ridiculous to think we can set this up.”
According to the new regulation, structures on sidewalks and streets will be seasonal. They will have to be dismantled in December but can return in April.
For many restaurants, outdoor space doubles the total capacity of the establishment. A legacy of the Covid pandemic that many now do not want to lose. After all, doubling the number of seats can double restaurant revenue in the warmer months, with no corresponding expenses. While they will have to hire some additional waitstaff to handle the extra customers, costs such as rent and utilities, insurance, and kitchen and management labor remain fixed.
Before the pandemic, only about 1,200 establishments in New York City took advantage of outdoor dining, according to the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, which at that time managed the licensing of cafes and restaurants on sidewalks.
Two-year licenses came with fees ranging from $30 to $40 per square foot, and zoning or demarcation rules often prohibited seating on sidewalks. Restaurant “sheds” and the Open Streets program, which allows neighborhoods to temporarily close streets to automobile traffic, did not exist.
The pandemic ushered in the era of sidewalk and street dining. About 12,000 establishments seized the opportunity for expansion, according to the Department of Transportation.
Hundreds of establishments have already signed up since new applications for outdoor dining opened in March of this year, according to Transportation Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez.
The transportation department expects the new setups to cost restaurants five digits to build, dismantle, and store off-season. The new fees per square foot for outdoor seating have dropped significantly from pre-pandemic levels, ranging from $5 to $31 per square foot based on location and type.
Source: Gothamist