Mayor Bill de Blasio Announced Outdoor Dining Extended To Oct 31 in NYC

 

NEW YORK, NY — The popular pandemic Open Restaurants program will last until trick-or-treaters hit the streets.

Mayor Bill de Blasio on Friday announced the program will be extended until Oct. 31, giving 8,600 New York City restaurants — and counting — a chance to serve food and drink through every last bit of good weather.

“The Open Restaurants program has worked,” he said. “It has brought back jobs, it has been safe and therefore will extend this initiative. The restaurants will be able to use sidewalks and will be able to use the curbs through September, through October.”

The extension will be paired with 40 more blocks of pedestrian- and bicycle-only Open Streets that will open Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays for dining, de Blasio said.

Those include locations in Chinatown, Fifth Avenue in Park Slope and Forest Hills, according to a release.

Both programs arose as ways to give New Yorkers space to walk, bike and dine safely during the coronavirus pandemic.