Draft-The Future of Outdoor Dining in New York City

The Alfresco NYC Coalition is committed to improving the quality of New York streets for all New Yorkers and supporting the long-term potential of the Open Restaurants and Open Streets programs. As New York City shifts from an emergency response to the COVID-19 pandemic to a period of reimagining public corridors for people, our coalition is committed to ensuring that these long-term plans remain equitable, accessible, safe, clean, and visionary.

Responding to COVID-19, New York State’s emergency order gave New York City the ability to establish a temporary outdoor dining program. This suspended the rules governing the City’s previous Sidewalk Cafe program. As a result, more restaurants were able to create outdoor dining spaces in the sidewalk and curb lane and could do so with a remarkably quick self-certification process that reduced many barriers businesses faced when using the public right-of-way.

Through the Open Restaurants emergency program, more than 12,000 restaurants around the city created or expanded their outdoor dining footprint, a decision that saved as many as 100,000 jobs. While many small businesses were given an important lifeline, others, like businesses on Malcolm X Boulevard in Brooklyn as documented by the Bridge Street Development Corporation, faced permanent closure because of the pandemic. 91 percent of restaurant operators believe that the City’s temporary outdoor dining program was very important to the survival of their businesses.

Simultaneously, New York City started experimenting with a range of other​“Open” programs that reimagined public space, such as Open Streets for people to enjoy outdoor recreation, Open Culture for artists to perform, and Open Storefronts for small businesses to sell their goods. These programs accelerated a transition—at least in awareness—of how to make streets and sidewalks more accessible and more focused on people.

Key Recommendations for Open Restaurants

1. Phased Transition to the Permanent Program

2. Integrated Streets

3. A ​“Kit of Parts” Menu

4. Right-Size the Review Process

5. One-Stop-Shop Portal

6. Sliding Scale Fees for Permits

7. Prioritize Education Over Penalty-Based Enforcement

8. Grow the Capacity for Community Engagement

9. Establish Public-Private Partnerships for Stewardship

10. Increase Universal Accessibility

11. Ample Sidewalks

12. Democratize the Parking Lane

New York City has more than 3,000,000 free parking spaces around the city, which equates to over 10,000 of the estimated 32,000 acres of roadway that are only serving parked, private automobiles. More than three 75 percent of space between buildings is given over to the movement and storage of vehicles. Advocates from a range of sectors—hospitality, transportation, urban design, sanitation—have long celebrated new opportunities to create a much more diverse and inclusive public realm. No intervention has provided such a dramatic change in how we use our streets and sidewalks in such a short time as the ​“Open” programs.

These programs, launched under emergency terms, dramatically reduced the amount of red tape for businesses and community groups to certify and license their interventions. It’s hard to overstate how crucial this self-certification process is to lowering barriers for program participation. Previously there was a nine-month approval process for sidewalk cafes. All of the sudden, businesses were allowed to set up seating in a matter of hours.

This flexibility has been a boon for businesses, but it has also created challenges related to more lenient use of New York’s very limited public realm. A small but vocal group of neighborhood advocates have rightfully pointed to deleterious effects: challenges in keeping streets clean and free of rodents, increased concentrations of noise pollution, unsightly and deteriorating sheds, and physical accessibility limitations. Opponents have been trying to use the legal system to halt the program. A lawsuit was filed to force the City to undertake a full environmental review of the program. This lawsuit was dismissed in late 2022, but another lawsuit is pending that questions the continued emergency order authorizing the program.

As COVID-19 restrictions were lifted in July of 2021, the City began to publicly contemplate a process for long-term outdoor dining solutions. The Department of City Planning (DCP) and the Department of Transportation (DOT) announced an engagement process for a permanent program in October. Then, the Planning Commission voted to remove zoning prohibitions on sidewalk cafes, which opened this opportunity to everyone and moved governance out of DCP. While this process began under Mayor Bill de Blasio, Mayor Eric Adams has remained in favor of developing a long-term solution. After passing legislation that could enable permanent Open Restaurants in February of 2022, the Mayor’s Office, agency leaders, and the New York City Council remain in discussion about the future of the program and its management.

This report intends to ensure these discussions among city officials and stakeholders address the needs of the program from many different perspectives. Through various research, interviews, round tables and open-call contests, we have seen how Open Restaurants can be more than a business program, it can also inspire creativity and ingenuity in how we think about our public spaces.

Ultimately, the future of Open Restaurants and the other ​“Open” programs should be responsive both to the immense opportunity of streets for people and to the very real concerns surrounding free use of the public realm. Thankfully, there are effective, common-sense paths forward. Alfresco NYC has developed a set of principles to guide the future of the program and a set of specific policy recommendations that can help make those principles possible.

To bring these key principles to life, the city will have to focus its attention on a cascading set of questions, move from the establishment of a permanent program to its execution, and identify potential tools to help this program grow and thrive. The Alfresco NYC Coalition believes these recommendations can guide these steps, answer these questions, and help the City realize a thriving Open Restaurants program.

Recommendation One

Phased Transition to the Permanent Program

Design a phased, supportive approach to transition businesses from the emergency to permanent program.

At issue: Businesses have invested time, money, and materials into building outdoor dining structures. The transition from the emergency to permanent program will be complicated, including the demolition of obsolete structures, communicating rule changes, and ensuring restaurants are not burdened with additional debt after their initial investment. A requirement to immediately demolish all structures and start from scratch would be unfair and wasteful. A phased and equitable approach must be taken that allows businesses to maintain operations as they strategize how to adapt to save on time and resources.

How to address this: The transitional process should be unambiguous and thoughtful, giving restaurants time to prepare for permanent guidelines. This should include a transitional period that allows private businesses nominal time to adjust their current operations, while allowing the City to deal with bad actors. To do this the City should:

• Develop a phased approach, with clear timelines for the immediate and long-term program goals with at least a one-year grace period for compliant structures to transition to the permanent program.

• Create a set of requirements and expectations for everyone involved—businesses, community groups, technical service providers, City agencies, and community boards. All stakeholders should understand their immediate transition phase responsibilities, and what to expect as the program matures.

• Communicate with program participants and communities up front about what will and won’t be permitted in the permanent program. The City should be clear about fundamental design, operational, and safety principles that will be enforced to address agency needs and quality of life concerns— even before full details of the permanent program go through public review.

• Provide resources and technical support to help restaurants adapt existing structures that can comply with the permanent program, develop protocols to assess and inform restaurants about how to use existing materials, and limit or waive program fees during initial implementation of the permanent program.

• Create a system to help restaurants facing financial hurdles remove components or demolish unwanted structures.

• Establish a process to regularly engage designers and community advocates that supported the emergency program to help understand challenges, inform design decisions, and develop parameters for the permanent program.

Recommendation Two

Integrated Streets

Integrate Open Restaurants into the NYC Streets Plan to ensure its implementation reflects a comprehensive vision for reclaiming the right-of-way for non-vehicle uses.

Recommendation Three

A Kit-of-Parts Menu

Create a pre-approved ​“Kit-of-Parts Menu” for Open Restaurants made up of affordable, flexible options for businesses.

At issue: Two years after the temporary program started, the quality of maintenance and expansive designs have resulted in some unsightly and unwieldy structures. While the Alfresco awards celebrated innovative designs and local identity in a number of structures citywide in 2021, today there are still unclear guidelines on what is currently allowed, sometimes resulting in fully enclosed structures with padlocked doors or over-the-top designs that overtake the sidewalks and impede accessibility. Additionally, shifting guidance early in the emergency program resulted in many restaurants having to rebuild their structures.

How to address this: Going forward in a permanent program, businesses should have certainty that their designs will comply, communities should benefit from more lightweight, flexible structures, and the City should be able to promote designs that can comply with different regulatory concerns.

• The City should develop an affordable and flexible Kit-of-Parts menu, populated by pre-approved products that will work for a variety of businesses that are aligned with these needs. It should present design combinations based on community needs, street typology and the location of the dining (roadway, sidewalk, open street, etc.).

• Develop the Kit-of-Parts according to a typical set-up, such as movable furniture, safety barriers, platforms or improved ramps to ensure universal accessibility from the curb, and lightweight canopies for shade and protection from inclement weather. These pieces may be interchangeable or vary in their appropriateness for each street typology. This would help ensure that businesses and community groups easily understand what is feasible at their locations.

• Lightweight lighting, and other features that make outdoor dining functional, comfortable and safe should be considered as additional pieces of the Kit-of-Parts. These features should not be hardwired, nor should they create additional obstructions or impacts to the surrounding community. Visibility, safety and modularity should be central to what is permitted.

• The City should ensure that the Kit-of-Parts is developed in collaboration with the number of architects, designers, planners and community leaders - Design Advocates, Design Corps, and Assembly for Chinatown for example - who provided expertise and pro bono services to address the many process and atypical design challenges on our streets and sidewalks.

• The Kit-of-Parts should encourage reusing viable materials from previous structures and promote using materials that are sustainable in the long term. Technical assistance can help businesses understand how to adapt.

• Components of the kit-of-parts should be developed to address multiple challenges. For example, platforms can help provide universal accessibility and allow for better drainage, but must prevent nesting of pests and other sanitation concerns. Designs could be encouraged to support stormwater collection or integrate to help maintain green infrastructure.

• Establishments should continue to be able to create vibrant art, lift up neighborhood culture, and otherwise beautify their outdoor spaces in ways that enhance street life within the parameters of new design guidelines. The Kit-of-Parts should be developed to serve as a platform for local creativity.

• Under a seasonal program, a standard kit-of-parts should be paired with services to ensure small businesses are able to participate. For example, a reasonably priced rental fee that includes set up and storage by a City-vetted third party would limit the need for businesses to incur upfront capital costs.

Recommendation Four

A Right-Sized Review Process

Right-size the review process to streamline the program. Simple setups should be incentivized through an expedited approval, with added layers of review reflecting the complexity of the proposed design, curb management needs or requests for variances.

At issue: The Open Restaurants Permit application enabled businesses to self-certify compliance with a simple one-page form that, coupled with support from design professionals and community groups, helped spur creativity and innovation throughout the city. This is contrasted with the many programs, agencies, and applications normally required to engage in other right-of-way activities, limiting the number and success of public realm activities. Moreover, a fragmented approach makes it difficult for agencies to coordinate and meet their operational goals. An online portal could integrate the variety of agency programs for the end user, streamlining education and approvals, while also helping agencies coordinate better.

At issue: Prior to the pandemic, outdoor dining was limited to sidewalk cafes and encumbered by a lengthy and expensive review process. The Open Restaurants program’s self-certification process dramatically reduced barriers to entry, allowing more businesses across the city to participate. As we transition to the permanent program, a process is necessary to ensure safety and quality, but it should not revert to an onerous process that leaves the program out of reach for small businesses, especially those outside of Manhattan. A right-sized review process would incentivize simple set-ups and lessen the burden on agencies and communities.

How to address this: While structural reforms to licensing would require revising the City’s Charter, there are clear steps available to make the review process more streamlined and more equitable:

• Create an intuitive user experience for the review process that clearly depicts the steps and their associated costs and timelines for approval. This should be visually appealing, reference the standard kit-of-parts available to businesses, and include support for design or other technical assistance that restaurateurs may need. It should include examples of how different types of proposals will be treated in the review process.

• Work with designers and community advocates to integrate their lessons learned into the review process and consult with them regularly for insights in updating program details as needs evolve.

• Create and promote pre-vetted set-ups, like the Kit-of-Parts, with negligible impacts on the right-of-way, and incentivize businesses to use them through a more expeditious approval process. Under the process for simple, unenclosed sidewalk cafes prior to the pandemic, Department of Consumer and Worker Protections (DCWP) had the option to waive a public hearing, thus saving up to a month on the review timeline.

• Implement a process to review atypical situations to allow for applicants to deviate from standard guidelines. A few factors may require businesses to secure a variance—e.g. sloped streets, more accessibility, narrow sidewalks—and they should not be denied if they work to address them.

• Create a public database of how atypical scenarios were addressed and outcome of reviews to enable businesses, designers or other stakeholders to understand how to approach similar situations.

• Consideration should be given to variance requests for year-round roadway seating that considers factors such as public seating, recent roadwork, traffic calming or pedestrian safety needs, and other agency goals for particular corridors. This could help break down silos and allow businesses to play a role in providing or maintaining City assets, such as green streets or other flood mitigation infrastructure.

• Create a transparent appeals process to enable businesses to understand why their outdoor dining was denied and that outlines a path to approval if feasible.

• Ensure that approvals result in multi-year permits to encourage engagement in the program, protect small business investments, and prevent annual politicization of the curb lane.

• Create a temporary license option, limited to a 30-day review period, to permit outdoor dining set ups for a single season while an establishment goes through a more formal multi-year license review. This would help businesses test whether it is suitable for their business to engage in outdoor dining. Those that open close to the start of the season would benefit by not having to wait an additional year to begin outdoor service. This could be mirrored after the Temporary Retail Operating Permit, which allows new liquor license applicants to receive a 90-day permit to serve alcohol after a 30-day review while their formal application is processed.

• The City should use the review process to educate businesses to other right-of-way interventions, including Open Streets, Street Seats, and the Plaza Program. These options should also be available to basement and upper-floor restaurants that are not currently able to utilize storefront right-of-ways.

• Consider a charter reform process to comprehensively evaluate and amend revocable consent to make it easier for private entities to activate the right-of-way for public good.

Recommendation Five

A One-Stop Shop Portal

Create a one-stop-shop portal to serve residents and businesses wishing to utilize the right-of-way, providing simplified permit review, resources and services, and fostering better interagency coordination for the City to address capital and maintenance needs more effectively.

Recommendation Six

Sliding Scale Fees for Permits

Ensure that fee structures for activating public space are flexible and fair so that they do not create barriers to entry for small businesses or less-resourced organizations.

At issue: The Open Restaurants emergency program made clear that variations in geography, street frontage, business resources, and foot traffic made for widely different expressions of outdoor dining. Because the program was open to all and low-cost, those variations were made more prominent. As the program moves towards a permanent version, these public spaces should not be free to privatize , and a fee should be collected to support its maintenance and operations. Flat fee structures are cost-prohibitive and can limit some businesses, especially in lower-resourced neighborhoods, from participating in the permanent program.

Recommendation Seven

Prioritize Education Over Penalty-Based Enforcement

With the permanent program, education of guidelines and access to technical resources should be prioritized over the ineffective use of penalties and fines, except for the most egregious violators.

At issue: Punitive measures on merchants and small businesses may only exacerbate the ongoing challenges of the program, especially when there is limited public investment or support. Steep fines for violations may, in turn, have unintended consequences, such as increasing the number of abandoned structures and business closures. Evidence abounds that the use of proactive education, coupled with the right resources, can have the most transformative impact on compliance with public programs such as this.

How to address this: While phasing in the permanent program, the City should prioritize education of new guidelines and promote access to technical resources for business owners. Enforcement should focus on safety, health, and public access of our streets and sidewalks. To accomplish this, the City should:

• Create an enforcement plan that is mindful of the transition phase and the complexity of moving from an emergency to permanent program. Enforcement should prioritize repeat violators after appropriate outreach and cure periods. Ensure violations are corrected through proper education, and that technical resources are available for those that may not understand how to fix them.

• Conduct direct outreach to provide notices of correction in cases where outdoor dining setups are not meeting guidelines, especially those that pose an immediate danger, create accessibility issues, or impede transit.

• Survey businesses and residents over the course of the rollout of the permanent program to help identify problems to correct, identify barriers to compliance, and improve the overall program adaptability.

• Standardize a cure period, according to the type of violation, to give operators due time to correct issues. Provide the appropriate provision of technical assistance and material support should it be requested.

• Especially during the initial roll-out of the permanent program, the City should find opportunities to provide door-to-door outreach for small businesses to educate them about the program. Such outreach should, at minimum, be in compliance with Local Law 30 of 2017 for language access.

• Formalize partnerships with designers and community advocates to connect with businesses that need support with atypical site conditions or other program challenges needing technical support.

At issue: Sustaining and growing the permanent program will require a dedicated set of resources from the city to permit, regulate, and enforce. However, the opportunity to elevate right-of-way improvements, connect to local economic development, and support integration with local organizations, could benefit from extra expertise and resources. A mechanism to roll out improvements and expertise efficiently would benefit community efforts across the city and maximize the potential of these right-of-way improvements.

Recommendation Eight

Grow the Capacity for Community Engagement

Strengthen the pathways for meaningful community engagement between the City, local organizations, and neighborhood advocates, allowing the program to adapt and be responsible.

At issue: During the emergency program, City agency staff have found ways to engage directly with program participants and local organizations. While this has been effective as an ad hoc strategy, given capacity constraints and the growth of the program, this leads to elevating the concerns of well-resourced organizations and can limit the voice of those with fewer connections or access to power. For a permanent program to evolve and help communities thrive, a structure must be created to allow for clear communication and bottom-up engagement.

How to address this: To create this necessary engagement, a set of tools should be developed to ensure that continuous feedback is gathered, clear pathways for engagement exist, and that communication is considered a standard practice. To do so, the City should:

• Organize a transparent working group of stakeholders, composed of representative design, business, civic, agency and community leaders, who can provide regular feedback on the operation of the program.

• Ensure that the One-Stop-Shop portal or 311 properly track community concerns specifically around the Open Restaurants program and filter them to agency staff that will be responsive to the requests.

• Standardize an evaluation process for all users of the program that can gather feedback and track the evolution of concerns. Ensure that this process can include feedback from allied stakeholders, such as designers, residents and community groups.

• Develop a granular approach towards local feedback by creating or tapping into existing community liaison programs, like DOT’s Street Ambassador Program, Chamber of Commerces’ restaurant liaisons, Business Improvement District leaders and community boards , that can capture different kinds of feedback and connect this information back to the Working Group.

• Develop protocol to proactively work with communities with limited English proficiency to ensure the diversity of NYC is reflected in the feedback and evaluation of the program.

• Monitor the evolution of quality of life concerns connected to the program to make adjustments to enforcement and regulations. A survey modeled after the Commercial District Needs Assessment carried out by the NYC Department of Small Business Services could help capture practical steps to address quality of life concerns.

Recommendation Nine

Establish Public Private Partnerships for Stewardship

Build off the strength of community and private-sector partnerships by creating a new entity capable of supporting citywide public realm interventions and resourcing local community groups.

Recommendation Ten

Increase Universal Accessibility

Leverage the potential of Open Restaurants and Open Streets to achieve greater physical accessibility so that everyone can enjoy outdoor dining, and the public realm, regardless of their physical or cognitive abilities.

At issue: The Open Restaurant program presented clear opportunities to make New York restaurant’s more accessible, by providing alternative seating to establishments that had pre-existing barriers, such as older buildings requiring steps to enter. Open Restaurants required a removable ramp for connectivity between the curb and the roadbed for those with mobility challenges. Accessibility advocates note that such ramps are inadequate because they tend to be unstable, do not work on steep inclines, and reduce circulation space. With limited ADA requirements and public education, many Open Restaurants have been missing the opportunity to attract customers with disabilities and neglecting their right to use the sidewalk.

How to address this: It is critical the new program’s design and policy guidelines work towards universal accessibility of outdoor dining, inclusive of mobility, visual, hearing, and cognitive diversity. To do this the City should:

• Cultivate a practice of continuous evaluating, learning and refinement, led by the first-hand experiences of ADA advocates and users. Connect this evaluation to community engagement and partnerships outlined elsewhere.

• Identify and include universal accessibility design components into the Kit-of-Parts that support the needs for people with disabilities. For example, advocates have noted that platforms flush with the curb can create better accessibility and should be required for roadway setups.

• Accessibility guidelines should be socialized through ADA training sessions that are open to the public and required for merchants, city staff, and community boards. With proper training, merchants could identify and flag accessibility issues within their spaces and community boards could help rectify issues directly with operators before submitting violations.

• Require Open Restaurants and Open Streets to be fully accessible. Do not allow that extra outdoor seating to count towards an establishment’s base requirements for interior space. If universal inclusivity is not feasible, the City should work with advocates on proper signage to designate levels of accessibility. For example, indicating if an Open Restaurant also has an ADA compliant bathroom or only a few accessible tables. Accessibility levels should be used on an up-to-date Restaurant Access Program (RAP).

• Promote and elevate innovations that can come from universal accessibility, such as shared accessible restrooms, digital menus with audio and adjustable font, and option for a reservation system that can communicate accessibility needs.

Recommendation Eleven

Ample Sidewalks

Where needed, the City should extend curbs to create ​“Ample Sidewalks,” able to support sidewalk cafes, pedestrian mobility, and activations of the public realm.

At issue: As revealed by Sidewalk Widths NYC report, over half of NYC’s sidewalks are less than 9-feet wide, challenging pedestrian transit and urban life, especially for people with disabilities. Many of the challenges faced by Open Restaurants’ arose because of this condition, especially as people waiting, delivery vehicles, bike racks, garbage and other obstructions further constricted sidewalks. Narrow sidewalks limit restaurants’ eligibility for Sidewalk Cafes, making roadway dining appealing in many parts of the City. Unsurprisingly, narrow sidewalks are not equally distributed across the City; in Lower Manhattan 20% of the sidewalks are too narrow for a Sidewalk Cafe; in Forest Hills, that percentage is over 60%.

How to address this: The City is thinking about sidewalk width and pedestrian mobility in a number of ways, from new plazas to widening sidewalks on key streets, and even limiting cars on select thoroughfares. Open Restaurants should be seen as another opportunity to widen sidewalks or otherwise improve pedestrian mobility, especially in areas outside of Manhattan. To do so, the City should:

• Find opportunities to decongest existing sidewalks. Clearance requirements on paper do not take into account the number of obstructions - bike racks, signage, delivery vehicles, garbage, City infrastructure, etc. - that limits pedestrian flow. In the short-term, pilot opportunities to move obstructions into the curb lane to clear up sidewalks.

• Identify streets in need of curb extensions through data and community feedback on desired local pedestrian routes. This list should identify opportunity areas and promote active discussion amongst stakeholders.

• Based on the street typology and other local concerns, streets that have an expressed need for a curb extension and can accept such an improvement should be identified for capital improvement. Intermediary improvements can be delivered, including shared street amenities, traffic barriers and calming devices, and Open Streets. These techniques can be seen as pilots for longer term capital improvement.

• In every case, the City should prioritize moving the ​“sidewalk”, not the activity, into the portion of right-of-way formerly devoted to vehicular uses. For Open Restaurants, this would expand Sidewalk Cafes. This would incentivize smaller merchant builds, thus reducing costs to the business, and insulating diners from moving traffic, an inherently dangerous position. Restaurants would have the advantage of accessing customers easily without navigating or disturbing other pedestrian or traffic flows. The City would have the advantage of easier street cleaning or roadway work, preserving transit and loading needs, and creating clear distinctions among the various activity ​“lanes” competing in the right-of-way.

Recommendation Twelve

Democratize the Parking Lane

Create a process for the public to turn parking spots into ​“Community Parklets” and receive support to bring additional amenities to the right-of-way when other options — such as Open Streets, Plazas, or Block Parties — are unable to be implemented.

At issue: In addition to outdoor dining, many establishments leveraged the Open Restaurants program to create community hubs that weren’t able to operate through other previous programs. However, distinctions under the current Open Restaurant program prevent other institutions from implementing community-focused designs that could reflect the diversity of needs and uses, such as for library services, fitness classes, places to relax, or for COVID testing. For example, the outdoor dining structure of Boogie Down Grind in Hunts Point is also used for local art exhibitions and cultural events. Underserved neighborhoods should not lose a new opportunity to rebalance unequal access to spaces and services.

How to address this: A ​“Community Parklet” program should be implemented that enables merchants or organized groups to tap into the Open Restaurant program and its legal infrastructure, giving new mixed-use space to programs that benefit their communities.

• Create a ​“Community Parklet” program that enables anyone wishing to bring public space programming to the right-of-way an option to do so in coordination with, or independent of, existing programs. For example, if parents want to bring a Street Lab pop-up to their community for a weekend, they should have a process for doing so without needing to establish a formal Open Street.

• The program should evolve to prioritize mixed-use opportunities in the curb lane that provide a mix of public seating with some private uses. Whether a non-profit wants space for delivering services or a library wants to provide a mobile option during the warm months, the right-of-way should not be limited to restaurants.

• Use successful Community Parklets to pilot permanent right-of-way transformations similar to how the NYC Plaza Program tests out the space before undertaking capital improvements.

• Streets with a concentration of Open Restaurants should consider developing thresholds for installing bollards and public seating to create communal public spaces and reduce privatization of the right-of-way.

• Furniture and amenities in the right-of-way should be required to remain open for public use on a first-come, first-serve basis. This would also encourage groups and merchants to work together in sourcing furniture and sharing the responsibility for maintenance and operations. Incentives like reduced fees, expedited review, or year-round seating should be offered in exchange for new community amenities.

This work would not have been possible without the collaboration of the diverse range of stakeholders interested in improving the public realm including restaurant owners, designers, volunteers, open street operators, city staff, scholars, and accessibility advocates.

This report is the culmination of our coalition work starting in February 2021. Alfresco NYC has been led by three non-profits: the Design Trust for Public Space, Regional Plan Association, and Tri-State Transportation Campaign. To strengthen the coalition, Alfresco NYC also selected a diverse Steering Committee to inform our work and provide support.

To inform the recommendations, we collected first-hand information from a range of viewpoints during different program stages. We developed various data collection tools and hosted or supported crowd-sourced competitions. We purposefully aimed to reach historically under-resourced neighborhoods and Open Restaurant corridors with different levels of success.

One-time crowd-source competitions:

• Alfresco Awards in 2021 celebrated exemplary solutions for outdoor dining and recreation.

  • Received over 150 submissions from all boroughs

  • Jury selected thirteen winners highlighting sustainability, creativity, or neighborhood integration

  • Focus on ADA accessibility

• AIANY Open Restaurants Innovation - In 2022 our partners at the American Institute of Architects New York collaborated with Alfresco NYC, NYCxDESIGN’s Design Corps, Design Advocates and others to organize a design competition and series of workshops to understand best practices for outdoor dining

  • Received submissions from designers across the City

  • Developed three working groups to investigate ideas for the permanent program

  • Created prototypes to encourage a variety of performance-based goals including accessibility, sustainability and community

• One-time Grant Program in 2022 supported businesses and community groups that were struggling to participate in the outdoor dining program.

  • Received applications from over 200 businesses in neighborhoods classified as hardest hit by COVID-19.

  • Applications identified ongoing challenges for program participation

  • Learned ways in which local businesses and organized groups were helping to address challenges like public safety, youth employment and food insecurity.

Research tools used throughout the project duration:

• Semi-structured interviews - Interviewed over 30 groups and individuals including Business Improvement Districts, neighborhood groups, Open Streets volunteers, consulting firms, accessibility advocates, academics, and pro-bono design groups.

• Site surveys - focused on six corridors with a concentration of Open Restaurants according to NYC Open Restaurants Data. We identified three corridors recognized as successful –30th Avenue in Ditmars, Queens (TimeOut, May 2021); Arthur Avenue in Belmont, the Bronx (6sqft, July 2021); and Austin St in Forest Hills, Queens (Yelp)—and three less-successful corridors based on previous visits and word-of-mouth –5th Avenue in Sunset Park, Brooklyn; E105 St in East Harlem, Manhattan; and Morris Park Ave in Morris Park, Bronx. Site selection prioritized boroughs with low program participation and medium to high labor force vulnerability (RPA, March 2021).

• Press analysis - analyzed nine months of related media coverage, from November 2021 to July 2022. The coverage captures several key moments and includes commentary from community members, business owners, elected officials and advocates. Commentaries were valued as positive (green), negative (orange), or neutral (yellow) and then classified in four categories: quality of life, mobility and accessibility, crisis recovery, and equity.

• Roundtables - hosted four roundtables with invited stakeholders addressing main challenges for permanent Open Restaurants: volunteer capacity, accessibility for all, street integration, and process improvements.

• Lastly, the Alfresco Recommendations received stakeholder feedback from people and organizations that participated in at least one of the seven research tools. Their feedback was integrated into this final version.

AlfrescoNYC Steering Committee

Justin Davidson; Danny Harris; Samara Karasyk; Nicholas Mosquera; Andrew Rigie ; Eman Rimawi-Doster; Janette Sadik-Khan; Katie Schwab; Shabazz Stuart; Diana Tsui; Jonathan Waxman; Claire Weisz; Andy Wiley-Schwartz; Michelle Young

The project is generously supported by The New York Community Trust, M&T Bank, and Association for a Better New York.

Report Authors

Matthew Clarke - Executive Director - Design Trust for Public Space
Elana Ehrenberg - Senior Policy Manager - Design Trust for Public Space
Akemi Sato - Senior Urban Planner and Designer - Design Trust for Public Space
Catherine Betances - Equitable Public Space Fellow - Design Trust for Public Space
Kate Slevin - Executive Director - Regional Plan Association
Maulin Mehta - New York Director - Regional Plan Association
Dave Zackin - Creative Director - Regional Plan Association
Renae Reynolds - Executive Director - Tri-State Transportation Campaign
Darwin Keung - Research and Policy Manager - Tri-State Transportation Campaign
Sonia Szczesna - Active Transportation Director - Tri-State Transportation Campaign

This work would not have been possible without the collaboration of the diverse range of stakeholders interested in improving the public realm including restaurant owners, designers, volunteers, open street operators, city staff, scholars, and accessibility advocates.