{"id":209042,"date":"2026-08-31T20:39:15","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T20:39:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/209042\/"},"modified":"2026-08-31T20:39:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T20:39:15","slug":"outdoor-dining-mamdani-restores-year-round-al-fresco-across-nyc-in-first-bill-signing-ceremony-of-his-tenure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/209042\/","title":{"rendered":"Outdoor dining: Mamdani restores year-round al fresco across NYC in first bill-signing ceremony of his tenure"},"content":{"rendered":"

This winter, New Yorkers will once again be able to enjoy a steaming hot sit-down meal in the freezing cold.\n<\/p>\n

The council approved its latest legislation after the seasonal program, which had been passed under then-City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams and signed by former Mayor Eric Adams in 2023<\/a>, saw a seismic reduction in the number of participating restaurant owners \u2014 due to the high cost of taking down and storing<\/a> the roadway structures each year. The 2023 program replaced the city\u2019s first iteration of roadway dining, which was established by Adams\u2019 predecessor, Bill de Blasio, during the COVID-19 pandemic.\u00a0<\/p>\n

During Mamdani\u2019s Monday bill-signing ceremony outside of City Hall, the first of his tenure, he said that the seasonal program forces business owners to lay out tens of thousands of dollars annually to take down and put up the structures each year.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost restaurants or cafes do not have tens of thousands of dollars just lying around,\u201d he continued. \u201cThis legislation will make it possible for small businesses to keep those structures up year-round.\u201d<\/p>\n

What the new outdoor dining bill aims to accomplish
\n\"OutdoorOutdoor diningPhoto by Dean Moses<\/p>\n

The change could lead to thousands more restaurants signing up for the program, city officials have said, which dwindled from nearly 12,000 participants at the height of the coronavirus pandemic to just under 1,600 getting licensed this past spring. It will take effect this fall.<\/p>\n

In addition to restoring year-round outdoor dining, the legislation allows restaurant owners to retrofit their structures for the winter months by adding coverings meant to guard against low temperatures, snow, and other cold weather conditions. It will also require establishments with roadway cafes to shutter them by 11 p.m., rather than midnight under the current program, so as not to disturb their neighbors late at night.<\/p>\n

Restaurant owners interested in participating in the program must pay the city both a $1,050 licensing and operation fee as well as an additional surcharge to rent the road space.\n<\/p>\n

During his remarks, Mamdani also urged New Yorkers to vote in favor of a November ballot proposition advanced by his Commission on Government Efficiency<\/a> that promises to shorten the outdoor dining application process from eight to two months and save restaurant owners up to $1,800 on it.<\/p>\n

City Council Member Lincoln Restler (D-Brooklyn), who sponsored the legislation, said that changes made under the Adams-era program to combat persistent rodent and trash issues with outdoor dining structures have worked and will remain in place. Those include a requirement that restaurant owners check under the floorboards of the setups each week and that they use \u201cfully removable\u201d furniture.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have successfully addressed the cleanliness issues, garbage issues, rodent issues that had plagued the earlier version of the program,\u201d Restler said. \u201cAll of those great regulations remain in effect as we bring the program back to year-round.\u201d<\/p>\n

During a Monday public hearing preceding Mamdani\u2019s bill signing, a chorus of supporters ranging from local business group leaders to public space advocates lauded the return of year-round outdoor dining.<\/p>\n

Dirk McCall de Palom\u00e1, executive director of the Sunnyside Shines Business Improvement District in Sunnyside, Queens, said making outdoor dining a 12-month program again will be \u201ctransformative.\u201d He said that when the city made the initiative seasonal, it reduced the number of participating restaurants in the BID\u2019s area by two-thirds.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey ended up having a lot of economic problems as a result of it; they had to lose staff,\u201d he said. \u201cThis bill is wonderful. We are so excited that you\u2019re going to be signing it.\u201d<\/p>\n

James Kwon, owner of the pizza shop chain Village Square Pizza, said year-round outdoor dining will be a \u201cbig help\u201d to his business because it will make space for more customers by expanding the square footage and allows him to offer more jobs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you only knew how big something like this is for restaurants, these mom and pop operations,\u201d Kwon said. \u201cWe rarely see anything being done to help small businesses, and we really\u00a0feel like this is one of the biggest things that\u2019s happened in years.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This winter, New Yorkers will once again be able to enjoy a steaming hot sit-down meal in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":209043,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[148],"tags":[87650,93640,51032,93641,565,4325,75508,28596,93642,93643,93644,553],"class_list":["post-209042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-zohran-mamdani","tag-adrienne-adams","tag-city-council-member-lincoln-restler","tag-commission-on-government-efficiency","tag-dirk-mccall-de-palomu00e1","tag-eric-adams","tag-mayor-zohran-mamdani","tag-outdoor-dining","tag-pm-newsletter","tag-seasonal-outdoor-dining","tag-sunnyside-shines-business-improvement-district","tag-year-round-outdoor-dining","tag-zohran-mamdani"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/117192056862993062","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209042\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/209043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}