Restaurateurs Plead For NYC Indoor Dining As Cold Weather Looms

NEW YORK CITY — The summer outdoor dining scene that kept New York City restaurants afloat during the coronavirus is nearing its end — and restaurateurs worry it will bring a winter they won't survive.

The NYC Hospitality Alliance on Tuesday called for city and state officials to bring back indoor dining in the city.

Restaurant and bar owners have watched their counterparts outside the city greet diners inside their eateries for weeks, as well as plans advance for reopening schools, museums, gyms and bowling alleys, they argued.

"Despite the fact that the City exceeds and sustains the metrics that have allowed restaurants throughout the rest of the State to reopen, government leaders have still yet to provide any guidance on when small business owners, workers and customers can expect indoor dining to return," said Andrew Rigie, executive director of the NYC Hospitality Alliance, in a statement.

New York City was poised to see indoor dining return in July as the city entered another phase of reopening from the coronavirus.

But Mayor Bill de Blasio announced indoor dining would be delayed as the virus surged elsewhere in the country. Putting city dwellers together in indoor spaces was just too risky, he reasoned.

On Monday, de Blasio said he's still "cautious" on indoor dining. He said the city and state continue to discuss the situation but he didn't address a specific return plan.

"We're both going to be very, very careful about any kind of indoor dining," he said.

The indefinite delay was tempered somewhat by the city's expanded outdoor dining program, which now has nearly 10,000 restaurants.

Still, the Hospitality Alliance found 83 percent of bars and restaurants surveyed couldn't pay rent in July and reported eateries employ 200,000 fewer employees.

Once outdoor dining becomes unfeasible in the winter, restaurants may not survive, an Alliance release stated.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Tuesday acknowledged the worries but also argued indoor dining in New York City is fundamentally different than other places in the state. The population density and lack of compliance with coronavirus safety measures, among other factors, makes it riskier to reopen indoor dining in the city, he said.

He then seemed to hint things could change — two weeks in the pandemic is what a year used to be, he said.

"Everything changes every two weeks," he said.