1,000 NYC restaurants are STILL waiting for outdoor dining permits #nyc #nycfood #nycrestaurants
Nearly 1,000 restaurants are still waiting for their outdoor dining permits under the failed program devised by the last mayor and City Council.
The delays have kept many restaurants from setting up tables and chairs outside, as the seasonal roadway dining program returned last month following a four-month winter pause, enacted by the Council in 2023 under then-Speaker Adrienne Adams and signed off by former Mayor Eric Adams.
Reporter Kevin Duggan explains the onerous process and bureaucratic holding pattern that restaurant owners have to go through to be allowed to set up in the curbside lane.
Read more: https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2026/05/14/almost-1000-outdoor-dining-permits-stuck-in-bureaucratic-backlog
Video by Henry Beebe-Center
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4 Comments
midnight spaghetti
Yeah. All sounds reasonable to me other tha massive backup
Oh bureaucracy, gotta love it
Why are so many people in favor of outdoor dining? It's a raw deal for pedestrians. If you put them in the street, it's still bad for us because it forces more cars on the road to look for parking. And forget about the sidewalks. We've already got way to many obstructions there: food carts, poles, garbage bins, planters, sidewalk sheds, other construction blockages, mailboxes, newsstands, fire hydrants, bus shelters, bike racks, LinkNYC kiosks, subway entrance staircases, active deliveries, etc.