Year-Round Curbside Dining Is Coming Back

Year-Round Curbside Dining Is Coming Back Not ending in November! Photo: Amir Hamja/Bloomberg/Getty Images Have you missed the experience of eating rapidly cooling French fries while wearing a parka and a scarf? Actually, yes, we have! And now it will return in a big way: The city council today passed a bill lifting seasonal restrictions on streetside dining. Starting this fall, as in the pandemic years, restaurants will be able to keep their outdoor sheds up year-round. It’s a retreat from the restrictions put in place under the Eric Adams administration, which had formalized and limited a freewheeling program that had begun as a COVID-era lifeline for restaurateurs. Under the Adams rules, they had to dismantle their sheds from November through April. (Unenclosed sidewalk tables were allowed, however.) It was a reasonable attempt to get rid of some of the slapped-together structures that had lingered through multiple winters, growing shabbier and rattier; it was also a concession to people who griped about losing parking spots. At the peak of the streeteries era, 12,500 restaurants had put up outdoor sheds, according to an estimate made last year by then-Comptroller Brad Lander, a number that’s since fallen by more than three-quarters. “The No. 1 reason that restaurants no longer provide outdoor dining is because it is stupidly expensive to build, deconstruct and store outdoor dining structures,” Lincoln Restler, who sponsored the bill for the return of year-round outdoor sheds, told the New York Times. The Department of Transportation’s permitting backlog, which this spring reportedly had hundreds of businesses waiting for a green light, hasn’t helped. For many restaurants, those extra few seats had been a godsend even after the pandemic, allowing them to serve substantially more covers per day without paying a huge rent increase. Earlier this year, Mayor Zohran Mamdani proposed streamlining the permit process, a sign that he’s onboard with the legislation package. The bills will also allow restaurants to weatherproof and winterize their sheds and require restaurateurs to keep them from becoming trash- and pest-filled shanties. And not a moment too soon: We’re deep enough into August to see the end of Aperol-spritz season coming up over the horizon, so it’s time to work up your enthusiasm for pasta-under-a-huge-gas-heater season. Bundle up! Year-Round Curbside Dining Is Coming Back Your product is saved! You’ll receive emails when your saved products go on sale. Manage preferences.