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NEW YORK CITY – Have you noticed a change on Manhattan’s streets? The outdoor dining sheds that became a staple of pandemic-era life in the city are vanishing, and pretty soon, they’ll all be gone.
Restaurants must remove roadway outdoor dining setups by the end of Friday, Nov. 29, or risk fines of up to $1,000, according to the Department of Transportation (DOT).
The deadline marks the end of the 2024 outdoor dining season, which will resume on April 1, 2025. Sidewalk dining setups that meet program guidelines, however, can remain operational year-round.
The DOT is enforcing the Friday deadline as part of the city’s new Dining Out NYC program, which formalized outdoor dining as a permanent feature of the streetscape following its popularity during the pandemic.
Permanent street fixtures, however, had to go, city officials determined earlier this year.
According to legislation passed by the City Council, roadway outdoor dining is permitted annually from April 1 through Nov. 29. Sidewalk dining is allowed year-round, with specific guidelines aimed at addressing quality-of-life concerns aired by residents of neighborhoods like the West Village, where outdoor dining proliferated during the pandemic.
Dining Out NYC is currently the largest permanent outdoor dining program in the United States, according to DOT, and since the program’s inception, nearly 3,000 restaurants have submitted license applications (2,994 to be exact).
There were about 1,000 sidewalk cafes before the COVID-19 pandemic, a number which skyrocketed to more than 12,000 following then Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s prohibition of indoor dining in March 2020.