In 2020, responding to the
COVID-19 pandemic, many cities increased the options for restaurants to offer outdoor dining, in order to promote open-air and spaced-out seating, and help businesses economically recover from the pandemic's impact. In
New York City, 10,600 restaurants had enrolled in the city's outdoor dining program by September 2020, compared to just 1,023 sidewalk cafes that existed before the pandemic. The use of bubble tents or outdoor dining pods also increased during the pandemic. Before the pandemic, these pod installations were rare. Although outdoor pods reduce the risk of contracting COVID-19 compared to indoor dining, they have been criticized for their lack of air ventilation. Some cities, such as New York and
Portland, have taken steps to preserve outdoor dining installations that were originally introduced as a COVID-19 mitigation, albeit with new regulations and fee structures. In other cities, such as
Paris,
Long Beach and
Claremont, rollbacks to initially liberal pandemic-era dining policies have resulted in a significant decrease in the availability of outdoor dining. == See also ==