QUEENS, N.Y. - The owner and chef of The Thirsty Koala in Astoria, Katherine Fuchs, has a lot to lose if she can’t find ways to promote her business amid the coronavirus pandemic. 

“If this restaurant goes, I’m probably going to lose my house,” said Fuchs. 

What You Need To Know

  • One business owner told NY1 that even when indoor dining begins, she will need to continue using her outdoor dining space to stay afloat

  • The NYC Hospitality Alliance said that they have received a number of questions from restaurant owners in regards to heating outdoor dining spaces

  • City Councilman Joe Borelli said that the current process for getting the permits to heat outdoor dining spaces is too difficult and costly

She created outdoor seating as part of the city’s Open Restaurants Program and is participating in the Open Streets Initiative as well. 

Now, she’s trying to figure out how she can keep the outdoor dining part of the business going as the weather gets cooler. 

Her only problem is that she’s having trouble figuring out what her options are. 

“In order to do outdoor heating, you have to go through the Department of Buildings and there are requirements that you need to meet. There’s the Fire Department, so it’s not an easy process,” said Fuchs. 

She said that even when indoor dining begins on September 30 that, at 25 percent capacity, it won’t produce enough money to survive on alone. 

That’s why Fuchs and business owners like her are hoping they can keep outdoor seating past the current end date for the program, which is October 31.

“They are going to need heaters,” said Andrew Rigie, the executive director at the NYC Hospitality Alliance.  “Unfortunately, you can only use at the present time hard line natural gas heaters, which can take months to get installed, go through the permitting process and that’s just not realistic for the vast majority of restaurants.”

Kambria Crews, the owner of QED Astoria, thought she was ahead of the game when she bought four propane outdoor heaters over the summer. Then she realize she may have to return them.

“I am very diligent in researching everything that I can. It’s overwhelming and it seems like it seems to change without rhyme or reason, without notification,” said Crews. 

City Councilman Joseph Borelli took to Twitter over the weekend to express his frustration with the current guidelines.

He said he’s been contacted by many of his constituents on Staten Island, who want to know if the rigid pre-COVID guidelines for outdoor heating will stay the same or if the city will expand the program to help restaurant owners. 

“The mayor and the Department of Health and the Department of Buildings, they need to do a better job making easier rules for restaurants to be able to use outdoor heaters,” Borelli wrote.

A four-page guide on the rules for having “sidewalk cafe heaters” shows just how labored the process is in getting permission. 

A Department of Buildings fact sheet mentioned in the notice even advertises a link that didn’t work as of Monday night. 

NY1 reached out to the NYC Mayor’s Office for comment and learned that the current regulations listed for outdoor heating were created well before the pandemic. 

“We’ll be releasing guidelines soon to continue to help restaurants recover. We know it’s starting to get chillier out and we’re committed to supporting th​e industry,” said a spokesperson for the Mayor’s Office.