NYC outdoor dining sheds must come down Friday before the busiest part of the year per strict new seasonal rules

The Big Apple is shedding outdoor dining.Restaurant sheds across the five boroughs must come down by Friday, according to new city rules — that had some diners saying good riddance, while eatery staffers worried about the impact on business.“No love lost for these things,” 30-year-old East Village resident Zeke Sancousi told The Post this week.“They were ugly and cluttered up the streets and sidewalks, and made simple walking a pain in the ass — especially during the summer when the sidewalks are already clogged.”Dining structures that meet the city’s strict regulations will be allowed to reopen in April 2025 — but as of Tuesday, fewer than 3,000 restaurants had submitted applications to erect either sidewalk or roadway seating sheds.

That’s a far cry from the 6,000 restaurants that touted COVID-era dining permits as recently as this summer.Employees at several restaurants told The Post that being forced to take down the outdoor vestibules just around Thanksgiving was a headache — and fretted that having less seating for the holidays would hurt their bottom line.“I’m a little bit disappointed because that’s the busiest part of the year, right now,” Mirico Mennuni, 36, a manager at San Carlo Osteria Piemonte in SoHo, said.“So I’m putting down the shed right now, it means like for the month of December, that’s going to be a little bit less profitable.”Nick’s Bistro owner Tom Avallone said the impact on his Forest Hills, Queens business will be “tremendous,” particularly during the busy holiday season. The closure of his dining shed, which took more than 50 seats away from his restaurant, will cost him tens of thousands of dollars in revenue – forcing him to cut half of his staff, he said.“We built it the way [it’s] supposed to be,” Avallone said, noting that the $160,000 structure was kept in pristine condition and came with hardwood floors, heaters, fans, partitions and sliding glass windows — and it cost him tho...