Mayor Mamdani Signs On: Year-Round Outdoor Dining is Now Officially Back

Roadside outdoor dining will now officially be allowed year-round again in New York City, after Mayor Zohran Mamdani signed a City Council bill reinstating the practice.

“Rain or snow, sun or shine, New York City—if you want to—you will be able to eat outside and be together outside,” Mamdani said at a public ceremony on August 31. It was the first time he had utilized a public signing ceremony for a new law. Sidewalk dining was already allowed year-round prior to the implementation of the new law, although such amenities are now allowed to be enclosed in the winter.

Under previous and now-defunct NYC Department of Transportation rules, roadside sheds were required to be taken down between November and April, making them a strictly seasonal proposition.

These regulations were implemented in 2024, as part of a formalization of an outdoor dining trend that exploded during the COVID-19 pandemic, and were meant to address complaints from local residents who were concerned about the loss of parking spots and biking space and the deterioration of some abandoned sheds.

Yet the resulting outroar from restaurant owners led to a massive decrease—estimated by the City Council as around 90 percent—in establishments offering roadside dining sheds, which are technically referred to as “setups” by the NYC DOT.

According to the NYC Hospitality Alliance, an owners trade group, many owners believed that the costs of dismantling and rebuilding their sheds on a seasonal basis were too prohibitive.

City Council Speaker Julie Menin, who was not in attendance at the signing ceremony, posted online that she was “thrilled that the Council’s Outdoor Dining Bill was signed into law yesterday....this is a huge win for restaurant owners and food-lovers alike!”

“We are recovering from the darkness and isolation that defined that time period, and yet we’ve left one of the few positive changes behind from the pandemic...[the] outdoor dining that transformed our streets into vibrant hubs of community,” Mamdani said during his signing ceremony remarks.

He added that outdoor dining had “kept small businesses alive” and “allowed our city’s entrepreneurs to show off their unparalleled creativity.”

Council Member Lincoln Restler, a Brooklyn representative that authored the new outdoor dining law, spoke shortly afterwards: “By restoring outdoor dining, we are expecting thousands of restaurants to participate in this program once again.”

Restler described this as “great for the New York City economy,” citing estimates that it would spur job creation, as well as great for consumers. He also praised some aspects of the regulations passed under Mamdani’s predecessor Eric Adams, describing outdoor dining as “much cleaner” relative to its pandemic boom, when some sheds became neglected and fell into despair.

“Last year there were 11 311 complaints related to outdoor dining,” Restler said. “That number is so small, it doesn’t even exist.”

DOT Commissioner Mike Flynn gave remarks touching on these changes, as well. “We’ve moved away from the flimsy wooden sheds,” he said, calling the cleaner new sheds “more resilient” and “more accessible.”

These officials then migrated a short distance to watch Mamdani sign the law. The signing desk looked conspicuously like a dining table, being outfitted with a basket of bread and a water jug, not to mention a rose.