NEW YORK — Outdoor tables have saved thousands of New York City restaurants from going under when they were forced to close their dining rooms due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
But four years after the start of an experiment that transformed the streetscape of New York —which temporarily gave it a terrace-like atmosphere as lively as that of Paris or Buenos Aires—the era of casual outdoor dining has come to an end.
This past weekend, restaurants were forced to choose between adhering to strict rules for their outdoor dining areas or dismantling them altogether. Thousands opted to tear down the multiplex dining structures that had been erected along roadways in the early days of the pandemic.
Fewer than 3,000 restaurants have applied for curbside or sidewalk seating under the new system, according to city data. That’s a fraction of the 13,000 establishments that have participated in the temporary Open Restaurants program since 2020.
Mayor Eric Adams said the new guidelines address complaints that the barns have become a magnet for rats and disorder, and establish a simple application process that expands access to permanent outdoor dining options.
But many restaurant owners believe the rules will have the opposite effect and that a remnant of the pandemic, one that gave them the unusual freedom to convert parking spaces into rent-free extensions of their dining rooms with minimal red tape, will die.
“They found a middle ground by doing one thing and saying another,” said Patrick Cournot, co-founder of Ruffian, a Manhattan wine bar. “They basically outmaneuvered us.”
In the early days of the COVID pandemic, dilapidated plywood eateries appeared on the streets of New York City almost overnight.
With its crowded sidewalks and traffic-clogged streets, the city has never been known for its outdoor dining. But with customers banned from gathering indoors for months, the city gave restaurants the green light to expand dining spaces onto public sidewalks and roadways.
Simple outdoor seating sheds were quickly replaced or expanded into more elaborate structures that have endured long after the age of social distancing and sanitized groceries. Restaurants added planters, twinkling lights, flowers and heat lamps, allowing people to dine outdoors well into the cold winter months. Other outdoor dining spaces emerged in heated igloos, or with fireplaces and tiered roofs.
Today, these structures must meet uniform design standards, with licensing and floor space costs that can run into thousands of dollars per year, depending on size and location.
But the most important change, according to many restaurants, is the obligation to dismantle the roadside stalls every year between December and April.
That’s a breaking point for Blend, a Latin American fusion restaurant in Queens that once won an Alfresco Award for its “exemplary” outdoor setting.
“I understand they want to keep it consistent and whatever, but it’s just too much work to tear it down every winter,” manager Nicholas Hyde said. “We’re not architects. We’re restaurant managers.”
Blend’s 60 outdoor chairs “kept us alive” during the pandemic and remained well-used by guests who “just wanted to enjoy the outdoors since COVID,” Hyde said. But after reviewing the application, they decided to remove the curb structure and instead apply for sidewalk seating that could remain up year-round.
Of the 2,592 restaurants that have signed up for the new program, about half will replace sidewalk seating with curbside seating, the city said.
Karen Jackson, a teacher, was scheduled to have lunch indoors Tuesday at the Gee Whiz restaurant in Tribeca, one of the restaurants that took down their outdoor shelter before the deadline.
Jackson said she had mixed feelings about it, remembering that drinking coffee outdoors in a shed was one of the few ways to entertain herself at the start of the pandemic.
“Some were really cute,” but others were unattractive and infested with rats, Jackson said.
“Unfortunately, I think the places with more money were able to build the nice sheds and the places that were struggling weren’t,” she said.
Andrew Riggie, executive director of the NYC Hospitality Alliance, said the city should investigate why so few restaurants qualify for the program and the costs of tearing down, storing and rebuilding the buildings each year.
Applications for roadside food structures must also be reviewed by local community councils, where some of the fiercest debates over outdoor dining have taken place. Opponents have complained that the sheds eliminate parking spaces, contribute to excessive noise and attract vermin.
In the Lower East Side, a number of warehouses stand side by side, housing a sushi counter, a coffee shop, a Mexican eatery and a Filipino restaurant.
Paola Martinez, manager at Barrio Chino, the Mexican restaurant, acknowledged the trash headaches and neighborhood conflict — on a particularly busy night, an angry neighbor threw glass at the building from an upstairs window, she said. But her restaurant has filed a permit to remain on the road.
“It brings a lot more people to the area,” she said. “It’s great for business.”
City officials say restaurants that missed the deadline can reapply in the future. Restaurants that didn’t will soon be fined $1,000 per day they stay open.
Cournot described a sense of relief as he watched contractors use a crowbar to rob his once bustling food barn. He said the barns had come to symbolize an incredibly challenging period that saw a colleague die from the virus and a drop in sales nearly end his East Village wine bar.
“When people say it’s the end of an era, I think it’s the end of a uniquely terrible era for restaurants in New York,” Cournet said. “Like any kind of long-term group trauma, the positive things that we feel collectively are a bit of a mirage.”