Restaurants have lavish setups for outdoor winter dining. But is it safe?

A Latin fusion restaurant in Queens will serve crispy arepa cups and ropa vieja at an outdoor dining chalet with rustic wood beams and sparkling chandeliers.

In the Bronx, an Italian place has winter-proofed its back patio with Plexiglas walls and electric heaters, along with festive vines with pink flowers.

And a Manhattan bistro is handing out silver space blankets — the kind used by marathon runners to prevent hypothermia — to shivering diners.

A pandemic that has upended much of life in New York is now ushering in something the city has never really tried: dining by snow and ice. Or, as some restaurants are telling customers, the new BYOB is bring your own blanket.

The explosion of outdoor dining has been a saviour for more than 10,000 restaurants and bars that have taken over sidewalks, streets and public spaces to try to keep their businesses afloat. It has been so popular that Mayor Bill de Blasio and the City Council are making outdoor dining permanent.

But year-round dining outside is untested in the city’s bone-chilling winters, and has created daunting challenges for an industry fighting to survive.

“Are we going to have a mild winter or a harsh one?” said Andrew Rigie, executive director of the New York City Hospitality Alliance, an industry group. “It’s a gamble. With so much uncertainty about the weather and diner behaviour, it’s a risk.”

While a financial imperative for restaurants, enclosing outdoor areas for winter has raised health concerns as coronavirus cases in New York have started to rise again. Protecting patrons from the elements has led some restaurants to create shelters that lack sufficient ventilation, raising the risk of transmission.

Outdoor heaters — including propane heaters that had been banned in the city but are now permitted as a way to help restaurants — could also pose fire hazards.

Still, with restaurants having few options to make money, New York and other cities are forging ahead with winter outdoor dining. Chicago held a design challenge that drew ideas like a Japanese-style heated table and a modular cabin inspired by ice-fishing huts that fits on a parking spot.

In New York, the multibillion-dollar restaurant industry, one of the city’s most important economic pillars, has been decimated by the pandemic. Indoor dining has resumed, but at only 25% capacity.

About half the industry’s 300,000 employees are out of work. Many of the city’s 24,000 restaurants and bars have closed for good, and those open are seeing only a fraction of their business. Some estimates suggest that up to half may close permanently within the next year.

Still, outdoor dining has raised worries among public health and medical experts who warn that it can create a false sense of security that it is inherently safer than being inside. If customers wind up in completely enclosed spaces, the benefits of being outdoors, like increased airflow, would be lost, and the virus could spread more easily from infected people, through droplets and aerosols, especially if they were not wearing masks.

“You’re actually creating an environment where the virus is within the enclosure,” said Dr Abraar Karan, a doctor at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School who has treated COVID-19 patients and prefers dining at tables out in the open.

After ordering a margarita on a chilly patio in Boston recently, “I looked at the waiter and I said, ‘Soon, the only thing you’ll have on the menu is frozen margaritas,’” Karan said.

More than 10,600 restaurants have signed up for New York City’s outdoor dining program, a huge increase over the 1,023 sidewalk cafes before the pandemic. The program helps offset the indoor dining limit that many establishments say is not enough to climb out of their financial hole. Gov Andrew Cuomo said that capacity could be raised to 50%, but it is unclear when.

The city and state have imposed new rules for winter outdoor dining: A space will be considered indoor dining if more than 50% of its wall area is covered and be subject to the 25% capacity limit and other restrictions, including spacing tables 6 feet apart.

But given the sheer number of restaurants, it remains to be seen how strictly the city will police outdoor dining. Officials said various agencies, including the Transportation, Buildings and Health departments, will play a role in ensuring that restaurants do not block streets and have safe structures that do not pose virus risks.

“We’ll work closely with the industry to make sure every outdoor structure is ready for cold weather and safe for diners and staff,” said Mitch Schwartz, a spokesperson for the mayor.

Outdoor dining has become part of a broader movement catalysed by the pandemic to repurpose city streets long dominated by cars. The mayor, under pressure from transportation and open space advocates, has designated 83 miles of streets for walking, biking and dining. Most recently, stores were allowed to expand onto sidewalks.

Making outdoor dining permanent has taken away parking spots, drawing complaints from drivers. Adam Kadi, 30, a food delivery driver, said he now had to double park while making deliveries in Queens because dining cabanas took up curb space. “I get a lot of parking tickets,” he said.

Outdoor dining is taking up 6,000 to 10,000 parking spots, many of which are metered spaces along commercial corridors, according to transportation officials. The city has roughly 3 million parking spots on the streets overall.

The city’s 311 hotline logged 3,158 complaints about outdoor dining from July to Oct. 21 — compared with 352,214 noise complaints in the same period — according to OpenTheBooks.com, a watchdog group. Among the top complaints was outdoor seating that blocked sidewalks; the city requires an 8-foot path for pedestrians.

So far, city officials have issued warnings over various infractions and in a handful of cases ordered restaurants to stop serving until problems were fixed. State inspectors have also enforced rules around social distancing and safe operations, and have suspended the liquor licenses of at least 177 establishments for multiple violations.

It is unclear how many restaurants will actually offer year-round outdoor dining. Rigie said restaurants must weigh how much business they might generate versus the cost of winterising, which could run as high as $50,000 for expenses, including buying heaters and Plexiglas, and hiring electricians and contractors.

In the Bronx, Enzo’s has enclosed its back patio with plastic and added a pair of electric heaters, but has yet to commit to building an enclosure in the front where tables sit under an awning and five umbrellas. “It’s a game of waiting,” said Robert Aste, a manager.

Restaurants adapting to winter dining are also competing with homeowners for items that make cold weather more bearable, especially heaters.

Ming Lay, the owner of Oceanic Boil in Queens, said he needed electric heaters for his cabana and struck out at five Home Depot stores before snapping up four of them at a Costco.

Nicole Biscardi, a restaurant adviser hired by the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, has worked with dozens of restaurants to navigate what she calls “an alphabet soup of regulations,” including different restrictions for each type of outdoor heater — propane, electric and natural gas — and confusing criteria for enclosures. For instance, covering two long sides of a rectangular tent would make it an indoor area, while covering one long and one short side would not.

“It’s a very precarious time for these businesses,” she said. “They’re being hit with cumbersome regulations and a lot of extra expenses.”

Many restaurants worry that winter dining may not pay off. Treis Hill, a co-owner of two Brooklyn bars, Baby Jane and Dick and Jane’s, said they have spent more than $16,000 to set up outdoor dining with barriers, tents and heaters. But on a recent chilly afternoon at one bar, just two customers were under tents that could seat a total of 20.

“I think it’s going to be kind of gloomy for the winter for a lot of businesses,” Hill said.

Still, some restaurants are going all out. Danny Perez, who owns Blend Astoria in Queens, said he was spending “five figures” on a dining chalet with wood beams, an insulated roof and chandeliers. “You’ve got to adapt somehow or you shut down,” he said. “What are our choices?”

In Manhattan, Baar Baar in the East Village is selling fleece blankets with its logo for $10. Diners can snuggle up in a plastic-enclosed area with foot heaters under every table. “You can’t be freezing and enjoy dinner,” said Payal Sharma, a co-owner who said the restaurant was spending $20,000 to winterise.

David Honor, the owner of Fred’s Restaurant on the Upper West Side, has even tried to make it fun to eat in the cold. He bought 500 space blankets — getting the idea from runners in the New York City Marathon, one of his favourite city traditions. “They’re a conversation piece,” he said. “It’s a funny thing and everyone walking by stops.”

Some New Yorkers said they were willing to brave the cold and the virus to dine out. “It gets kind of sad and lonely at home, and you want to go out and have fun,” said Adam Iskounen, 37, a software engineer.

But Alissa Ladas, 28, a physical therapist, said it would depend first on whether she felt safe, and second on her comfort level.

“I can make a really good dinner,” she said. “So why would I want to pay $15 for a cocktail while wearing a blanket I had to drag across the subway?”

© 2020 New York Times News Service