NYC’s Weekend Outdoor Dining Program Is Extended to Weekdays

New York City’s open streets and restaurants program — which currently allows establishment to extend seating on to closed city streets on weekends — will now be extended to weekday service as well, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Wednesday.

For now, 40 of the 87 city streets participating in this weekend program will be able to transition into weekday service. A huge majority of these places are located in Manhattan, along with a few in Brooklyn, and only one street in Queens.

Some of the restaurants benefitting from this announcement include Williamsburg all-day cafe Gertie, Flatiron pasta hit Rezdôra, and Lower East Side Spanish restaurant Cervo’s, among several others. The weekday street service will kick off on September 17, but hours for each location will vary, and be listed on the city’s website for outdoor dining regulations.

Earlier this month, the city called on restaurants, community groups, and business improvement districts (BIDs) to submit applications to extend this component of outdoor dining to weekdays, and the announcement today is based on those submissions. This component of outdoor dining will also run through the end of the overall outdoor dining program on October 31.

Though indoor dining is set to return at 25 percent capacity at the end of this month, Mayor Bill de Blasio has not ruled out the possibility of extending outdoor dining this year, and making it a permanent fixture in NYC during warmer months.

Since the start of the city’s outdoor dining program, more than 10,200 establishments citywide have been certified to provide outdoor dining. With indoor dining’s limited return — and the fact that many restaurant owners, workers, and diners continue to feel unsafe about eating indoors — many in the industry continue to bank on the expansion of outdoor dining services to stay afloat during the pandemic.

Here’s a full list of the closed streets via the mayor’s office: