Even with outdoor dining, 87% of NYC restaurants couldn't pay their full rent in August

• A survey of over 450 New York City restaurants, bars, and nightclubs found that 87% of them couldn't pay their full rent in August, and that figure has only increased since June and July.
• Currently, NYC restaurants are open for outdoor dining, and they will be allowed to reopen for 25% capacity indoor dining on September 30.
• But experts have already told Business Insider reporters that that reduced capacity opening won't be enough to save restaurants.
• Some advocates, including members of the city council, want to extend outdoor dining permanently on a seasonal basis, and longer into the winter.

A new report from the NYC Hospitality Alliance found that 87% of restaurants couldn't pay their full rent in August — an increase from both June and July.

The group surveyed over 450 restaurants, bars, and nightclubs. Of those surveyed, only 40% have had their rent waived during the pandemic.

New York City restaurants were ordered to halt dining service on March 17. Outdoor dining could reopen on June 22, around three months later.

As Eater NY reports, the outdoor dining program in the city is currently set to end on October 31 — although some NYC Council members have introduced a bill that would make it permanent, including throughout the winter.

Mayor Bill de Blasio has already said that outdoor dining will return in 2021, and that it could become a permanent seasonal fixture. Some NYC restaurateurs will march on Gov. Andrew Cuomo's office on September 28, calling for an outdoor dining extension and higher-capacity indoor dining, according to Eater.

Eater has also been tracking permanent restaurant closures in the city throughout the pandemic. In the most recent update, more than a dozen restaurants announced they were closing their doors.

Indoor dining is set to open at 25% capacity on September 30. Even with that reduced capacity, experts told Business Insider's Kate Taylor and Irene Jiang, won't be enough to save the city's restaurants.

"Even with 100% occupancy before the pandemic, it was already very difficult to survive as a restaurant in New York City," Andrew Rigie, the executive director of the New York City Hospitality Alliance, told Taylor and Jiang.

In a statement to Business Insider, Rigie said that "approximately 150,000 industry workers are still out of their jobs, and the overwhelming majority of these remaining small businesses cannot afford to pay rent.

"The hospitality industry is essential to New York's economic and social fabric, and to ensure the survival of these vital small businesses and jobs, we urgently need rent relief, an indefinite extension of outdoor dining, a roadmap for expanded indoor dining, covered business interruption insurance and immediate passage of the Restaurants Act by Congress."