Outdoor dining in New York City update: Just 7 venues approved to serve alcohol as season begins April 1

Pour one out for outdoor dining of yore.

Once the program fully resumes on Tuesday for the season, the number of restaurants, cafes, bars and other venues partaking in New York City’s outdoor dining program — which expanded service to sidewalks and the roadway — will be down 80% from the pandemic peak.

And citywide, alcohol will be allowed to be served at seven outdoor-dining program establishments — seven total across all five boroughs — according to state Liquor Authority spokesman Patrick Garrett.

Two applications are currently in review, so that number could rise to nine, Garrett said in an email. 

The reduction in outdoor dining setups — tables set on the sidewalk as well as sheds, shacks, huts and other enclosures hugging the roadway — comes after the city government enacted rules that helped lead most venues not to bother with the program, including making it seasonal so that the structures would need to be taken down and stored somewhere during the offseason, along with an advisory role by local community boards.

As of Wednesday, there were just over 2,400 permitted outdoor-dining setups — about 1,800 sidewalk and 600 roadway — according to Vincent Barone, a spokesman for the city’s Department of Transportation, which administers the program. Full approval has been granted to 72, according to Chloe Chik, a spokeswoman for the city comptroller, Brad Lander.

As of Thursday, here is the borough-by-borough breakdown for roadway outdoor dining, according to a tally of data on the city's diningout.nyc.gov: 12 in the Bronx, 200 in Brooklyn, 0 on Staten Island, 342 in Manhattan, and 40 in Queens.

During the peak of the program, there were more than 9,000 with setups in the roadway, according to a February letter to Mayor Eric Adams’ officials from Lander, expressing "grave concern" at how the administration has "burdened the program with bureaucratic requirements that dissuaded thousands of restaurants from applying at all."

Mitchell Moss, an NYU professor who co-wrote a study tallying 12,502 establishments offering outdoor dining during the pandemic peak, blamed the reduction on needless red tape.

"New Yorkers love dining outdoors, and part of dining is also having a drink — or two. The City of New York needs to make itself attractive to people who live here, work here and visit here," Moss said in an interview. "Outdoor dining should not be treated as something which is a burden but as something which is part of the pattern of life that New Yorkers have come accustomed to."

Outdoor dining, which cut long-standing red tape, was born of necessity during the worst days of the pandemic when lockdowns loomed and fears of COVID-19 spread closed indoor gathering spaces.

It was enormously popular — enlivening street life, raising tax revenue and foot traffic — and was extended once society began returning to normal.

But those who opposed outdoor dining bemoaned noise, trash and some of the structures becoming blighted. Newsday reported in 2021 that about 10,000 parking spots, out of 3 million, became outdoor dining space.

A confluence of bureaucracy — the language of the 2023 city legislation making outdoor dining permanent, the way Adams' staff is administering the program and how the Liquor Authority grants permits (only to finalized, not conditional, approvals) — is to blame for the lower number of establishments allowed to serve alcohol outdoors, Chik said.

Andrew Rigie, director of the industry group the New York City Hospitality Alliance, says he believes the state can allow establishments to serve alcohol even if an outdoor setup is only conditionally approved, particularly during the transition from the pandemic-era status quo to the new one.

"It would be an absurd result if a customer could eat a burger outdoors but not drink a beer with it. Or have a plate of pasta al fresco but not a glass of wine," he said. 

Garrett, the Liquor Authority spokesman, said the agency’s board would be meeting April 2 to discuss the implications of conditional approval on alcohol-license issue.

Advocates for outdoor dining warned city leaders that making the program seasonal would likely cause a dramatic decline in outdoor dining operation, citing what happened in Paris, where the number went down to 4,000 from 12,000.

It turned out that the drop in New York City was even more steep.

City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, under whom the restrictions were passed, said applications for outdoor dining were still open. Asked about the dramatic decline, she said last week: "The only thing the Council did was — we reverted back to the days before COVID."

Joey Campanaro, executive chef and owner of Little Owl restaurant in the West Village, for years starting during the pandemic had a setup in Bedford Street, along with tables outside the restaurant. No longer.

Speaking Thursday during a bustling lunchtime service indoors, Campanaro said his eatery wasn’t eligible under the regulations as passed pursuant to the 2023 legislation, such as the sidewalk size, and proximity to the corner and crosswalk.

"In the beginning, we were able to be creative enough to be compliant and provide a really cool experience for our guests," he said, adding: "With the new regulations, it’s not gonna be on brand. It’s just not going to be the same."

Then there is the matter of bringing an outdoor structure into compliance with the law, his customers’ preferences, and the inconvenience of taking down and storing the structures during the offseasons, between Nov. 30 and March 31.

"I wouldn’t do the shed," Campanaro said, "but I would do the tables, absolutely."

A 12-minute walk away at Fellini Coffee on Thompson Street, the shop is planning to put up a roadway structure to accommodate outdoor dining, according to manager Lina Jaramillo. Once outdoor dining starts, she said, the cafe will employ six workers, from the current two, and business should boom. That’s particularly true when the weather is pleasant.

"On the days when it’s very sunny, then we have less people because people want to be out. But then if we have the outdoor seating, people are happy just to sit and enjoy their meal and their food outside."

As for criticism over outdoor dining, of which the eatery had to surmount some local opposition, she said: "People don’t like change."

By Matthew Chayes

matthew.chayes@newsday.comchayesmatthew

Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.