by: Bria Donohue
Last weekend, Dining Out NYC hit a new milestone with a deadline to apply for the new program. After the success of the temporary outdoor dining program during the pandemic, with over 12,000 restaurants throughout the city participating, the city passed legislation to create a permanent outdoor dining program last year. Under the permanent program, a number of rules have changed—including the design guidelines for roadway and sidewalk structures as well as roadway dining becoming seasonal (April 1 to November 29).
A mere 3,000 restaurants have submitted applications for DOT’s Dining Out NYC program. According to Streetsblog, outdoor dining sheds will only occupy 0.09% of the city’s parking spaces with around 1,315 restaurants applying for roadway dining, resulting in less than a tenth of a percent of the city’s 3,000,000 parking spaces being used for outdoor dining. As a strong advocate for outdoor dining as part of the Alfresco Coalition, we hope to see outdoor dining in NYC thrive and eagerly await the new dining structures. In the future, we hope to see the program expanded with more restaurants participating.