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By: Serach Nissim
After the pandemic hit, restaurants in New York City saved their businesses by two means—deliveries and erecting outdoor dining sheds. The city’s sidewalks defined the dining experience allowed. Some of the sheds built were merely flimsy outdoor fixtures, which have since been covered with graffiti or dismantled. Some restaurants, however, took things more seriously and built elaborate outdoor dining sheds, featuring sliding doors, heating and air conditioning, fancy light fixtures, and speakers.
As per the NY Times, one such elaborate shed is at Indochine, a restaurant on Lafayette Street in Manhattan. The set up includes dozens of potted plants, cushioned benches with throw pillows, bamboo-caged light fixtures and even security cameras. Despite the investment, the sheds day are numbered.
The sheds have been a source of great controversy for New York City. For restaurant owners, they were a boon, increasing their seating capacity and allure. Many residents, however, have complained that the sheds are a source of noise and trash, diminishing the city’s quality of life and creating an eye sore in many cases. The city has already cracked down on many sheds depending on the construction but more recently, a group of individuals has petitioned the city to do an environmental impact study of the program.
The matter is still pending in the courts.
In 2022, Mayor Eric Adams had announced a permanent outdoor dining program, with new rules.
The sidewalk structures would be closed for the winters from Nov. 30 to March 31. Per the Times, the sheds could not be fully enclosed and they had to conform with a standardized design, which would allow for street cleaning, allow drivers and pedestrians to see around the dining areas, and be fully dismantled for snow season. Businesses needed to apply for a license and pay a fee of $1,050 for a sidewalk cafe or a roadway cafe and $2,100 if applying for both. The license would be good for four years. Other fees also included a public hearing fee, a security deposit and a revocable consent fee, which varies depending on how expensive the neighborhood is and the space the restaurant will be using.
Now though, restaurants already participating in the city’s outdoor dining program must apply for a new setup by Aug. 3, in order to keep their dining sheds. By November, all of the original dining sheds must be dismantled. “The program that sprang up out of necessity has matured,” said Meera Joshi, the deputy mayor for operations.
“Now we have standards to ensure that all outdoor dining structures are beautiful and well-maintained, and that they work with our overall streetscape to transform what it feels like to be outside in New York City for the better.” She added, “No more shabby sheds.”
The problem is that many of the remaining elaborate sheds in the city today, do not conform to the standards set in the new dining program. Even Indochine, which spent more than $80,000 on the outdoor cabana, does not meet the standards. Jean-Marc Houmard, one of the restaurant’s owners, said Indochine would most likely not opt to install a new city-approved setup. He described their cabana saying, “It needed to be enticing enough for people to want to sit out there on Lafayette.”
Houmard added, “I wanted it to look like a little bit of a tropical fantasy outside of the restaurant.” At this point, it seems, “Unfortunately it’s just going to go to a dumpster,” Houmard said of the current shed.
