Despite Media Angst, Outdoor Dining Still Triple Pre-Pandemic Level

By Leslie Clark

Over the last month, the New York press has been filled with stories about the decline, decimation, disappearance and even the death of New York’s supposedly “popular” outdoor dining program:

“New York City’s freewheeling era of outdoor dining has come to end” [AP]
“Disappearing Seats, Defiant Eateries and the End of an Era” [The City]
“Dining Sheds Will Start Disappearing” [Bloomberg]
“New Outdoor Dining Regulations Decimate Outdoor Dining” [Hell Gate]

The stories accompanying the headlines all played on a single theme: The new regulations and fees of the permanent Dining Out NYC program — along with seasonal use of the roadbed — have caused many fewer restaurants than were expected to apply for the now-permanent program. One television news story even referred to the eve of the deadline as the Last Supper!

The problem with this oft-repeated, swan-song tale is that much of it is just not true. NYC Open Data reports that, before the pandemic, there were 1,074 sidewalk cafes citywide. NYC Open Data also reports that, during the May 2020 to July 2023 temporary pandemic program, 11,089 restaurants applied for outdoor dining citywide — the pandemic high water mark. And almost all of them got and used those self-certified licenses.

According to Dining Out NYC, there were 3,306 applications [1,991 sidewalk cafes and 1,315 roadway setups] for permanent outdoor dining permits as of the August 3 deadline.

So, a headline claiming an 80 percent decline from a temporary to a permanent program? Or another claiming that outdoor dining has been “decimated?” Take a minute to do the math. New applications show numbers more like a 66 percent decline from the pandemic peak — but still triple the outdoor dining on the streets of pre-pandemic New York.

That’s TRIPLE the outdoor dining that New York had in March 2020! You would think that the indefatigable promoters of private-profit dining in once-public space would be thrilled.

But the boosters are far from thrilled. The ballyhoo, boasting and bullying by the “new urbanists” and hospitality industry lobbyists created expectations of a brave new world of outdoor dining. And those promoters were the truest believers in their own propaganda. Together with government officials and the people’s elected representatives, they were going to remake our city streets — while maintaining the jacked-up, pandemic-era profits of a single private industry.

Now that restaurant owners have clearly failed to respond to this halcyon vision of urban utopia, the program’s boosters are trying to blame anyone but the barkeeps or themselves for the “disappointing” results of their four-year PR blitz. The finger of blame is being pointed most particularly at the electeds whose cozy favor the program’s champions once enjoyed.

Here’s Sara Lind of Open Plans tweeting on August 5: “A seasonal program was a poison pill and the [City] Council got what they wanted: a gutted program where neighborhoods that had outdoor dining for the first time during the pandemic have now lost it. It’s time to fix this major mistake and create a year-round program.”

But here’s the same Sara Lind just days before last summer’s vote on the “poison pill” bill she obviously worked hard to fashion: “Ladies and gentleman, after months of waiting, we finally have a revised Open Restaurants bill … HUGE thanks to the folks who got this done: Mayor Adams, Public Realm Czar Ya-Ting Liu, bill sponsor City Council Member Marjorie Velazquez and everyone else working diligently behind the scenes.”

The program’s boosters are stunned at the ‘disappointing’ results of their four-year PR blitz.

And New York City Hospitality Alliance Executive Director Andrew Rigie has spent the last month bemoaning the low application rate for Dining Out NYC — while laying blame for his disappointment on the very legislation and rules that he would now have you think he had nothing to do with! But let’s look at Rigie’s history in his own words.

When the Dining Out NYC-enabling legislation approached enactment a year ago, Rigie crowed: “Now, after two years of discussions and negotiations with the mayor’s administration and the City Council, led by our attorney . . . Rob Bookman, a new outdoor dining program is coming.”

A few days later, when the bill that political insiders Rigie, Bookman and Lind had crafted did pass the City Council, Rigie exulted again: “We’re thrilled to announce that after 2+ years of public hearings and discussions, today the City Council voted and passed the historic permanent outdoor dining legislation …This new law will cut the red tape and bureaucracy for small business owners to get a license and reduce the fees for restaurants to participate when compared to the overly restrictive and expensive pre-pandemic sidewalk cafe law…”

Yet, just last week, Rigie all but disowned his own legislative creation when he lamented the lower-than-expected turnout and suggested that the city — the politicians and officials into whose offices he and his chief counsel were so warmly welcomed — should now adjust the rules, the fees and the fines again “to help achieve their goal of having the biggest and most inclusive outdoor dining program in the country.”

Putting aside the self-serving hypocrisy and backpedaling — if we can! — what went wrong here? Or, a better question, what went right?

While Rigie, Bookman, Lind and legions of local politicians repeatedly told everyone that outdoor dining was a “popular” program, they didn’t say why — and for whom — it was popular. For restaurant owners, getting free use of public property for four years — that would double and sometimes triple their seating capacity — was definitely popular. Even more popular was an administrative agency, the New York City Department of Transportation, that clearly had no intention of enforcing even the minimal rules of the temporary program while garnering millions of additional taxpayer dollars to supposedly do just that. Participating in a “gimme” program like that for four years was an easy business decision for a lot of restaurateurs.

But then the years of something-for-nothing-with-no-strings-attached came to an end on August 3. And about two-thirds of those restaurateurs did the math again and made another business decision. That’s just straight-up market economics.

And was outdoor dining ever “popular” among those who lived with it day and night, whether they liked it or not?

Amongst all the press reports of the last month on the “woeful” decline of outdoor dining — I counted more than two dozen! — there was just one newspaper that gave even a nod to the city residents who lived around the sidewalk-consuming sprawl of tables and chairs, and the rat-breeding, shrink-wrapped plywood roadway sheds.

The Daily News headline read: “Many locals won’t shed a tear as COVID-era dining sheds disappear.” And why would we? Recalling a bit of too-quickly-forgotten history here, we are the same “locals” who supported the reopening of restaurants on public property in the grim spring of 2020. We wanted them back among us — when we thought they would be a cheering, temporary presence in the streets and on the sidewalks.

But then came the big bait-and-switch. Led by the hospitality industry and the “new urbanists,” the mayor and the City Council moved quickly to make the temporary program permanent with a resolution passed in the fall of 2020 after just one, unpublicized public hearing. Seven months later, D.O.T. issued a zoning text amendment that would remove all restrictions on where a sidewalk cafe could be placed. According to analysis by city planning expert George Janes, that zoning amendment potentially made as many as 350 miles of public property available to just one industry to rent at bargain-basement rates. No environmental impact study was ever conducted on this massive increase — that nearly tripled the miles of public roadways and sidewalks dedicated to outdoor dining for private profit.

What did the “popular” al fresco revolution mean for its residential neighbors, in practice? Streets narrowed by sheds to the point that fire engines couldn’t get through to protect our homes. Sidewalks occupied by hundreds of alcohol-fueled customers shouting into bedrooms where people were trying to sleep. Trash piled anywhere and everywhere and always available to the new legions of rats — so many of them that the mayor’s newly appointed “rat czar” could do nothing to stop rodents chowing down on the abundant smorgasbord of diner droppings. Sheds were used in off hours for al fresco urinating and defecating, shooting up and hooking up.

In this last month’s press blitz, newspapers quickly gathered predictable quotes from Rigie, Bookman, Lind and Co. about how the “popular” program could be restored to its once-mammoth number of participants — if only there were yet more givebacks to the industry: even longer deadlines, even lower fees and fines, even more months in the roadway.

 But only one reporter spoke to an actual resident. And it’s worth reprinting what actual Greenwich Village resident Leif Arntzen said about this “popular” program: “Sheds that have come down in the past have been replaced by quieter, cleaner norms and community relief. I don’t see anyone getting up to defend restaurant owners, or their favorite shed. If anything, we’re all hoping the last few will quickly (and quietly) disappear.” Amen.

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Clark is a member, CUEUP (Coalition United for Equitable Urban Policy) Facilitation Team. This opinion piece was originally published in the Village Sun. Republished with permission.