A Guide To New York Cafe Restos started with a simple question: which New York restaurants actually have permission to seat you outside? Rather than guess from photos or crowdsourced reviews, we went to the source, the official license register kept by the NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP), which tracks every business approved for sidewalk or roadway café seating in the five boroughs.
We cleaned, de-duplicated, and organized that register into a searchable directory: 1,284 currently licensed eateries, each tagged by borough, neighborhood, and seating type. A "sidewalk café" license covers tables set up on the sidewalk in front of a restaurant; a "roadway café" license covers seating built out into a former parking lane, the open-air dining setups that became a fixture of New York streets after 2020. Some spots hold both licenses at once.
This is a living directory of outdoor dining, not a review site. We don't rank restaurants or publish opinions about the food, we map where the city has legally authorized outdoor tables, so you can decide where to eat outside on your own terms. You can read more about how the licensing system works, and about the city's outdoor dining history, in our Restaurant Guides section.
Restaurant and café licensing data is provided by NYC Open Data, a participant in Data.gov, the U.S. government's open data initiative. Records reflect active Sidewalk Café and Roadway Café licenses issued by the NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP). This site is an independent guide and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the City of New York.
A Guide To New York Cafe Restos is developed and maintained by Phillistine Records, an independent creator studio building web-based directories and guides. Questions, feedback, or corrections are always welcome — see our Contact page.