New York Lost a Net 1,928 Restaurants and Bars in a Year, the Worst in at Least 36 Years of BLS Data
New York State had 48,928 restaurants and bars in the first quarter of 2026, a net 1,928 fewer than the 50,856 it had a year earlier, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, a count built from the unemployment-insurance filings of nearly every employer. Net means closings minus openings. The 3.8% drop is preliminary, so BLS can still revise it. Restaurant and bar jobs fell much less over the same stretch, 0.6%, from 648,241 in March 2025 to 644,182 in March 2026.
That’s the biggest net yearly decline in eating and drinking places in at least 36 years of BLS data, surpassing even the steepest drop of the pandemic, Bloomberg’s Nacha Cattan reported. A New York Eats Here newsletter analysis of the same BLS data puts the pandemic year, the first quarter of 2020 to the first quarter of 2021, at a statewide loss of 1,631 places, or 3.3%. The first quarter of 2026 was also the fourth straight quarter in which the state’s count came in below the same quarter a year earlier, per BLS.
Bloomberg cites rising insurance premiums, wages and interest rates, and an August report from New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli that found energy and health-coverage costs and city business taxes outpacing national trends. Melissa Fleischut, chief executive of the New York State Restaurant Association, told Bloomberg that members describe “death by a thousand cuts,” and that “the idea that they’re looking three years down the road, five years down the road, has just been thrown out the window.”
Manhattan is holding up the jobs number
The 0.6% figure is a statewide average, and BLS county data shows one borough propping it up. Manhattan had a net 204 fewer restaurants and bars, down 2.1%, and still added 3,166 restaurant and bar jobs between March 2025 and March 2026, up 1.8%.
Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island together lost a net 898 places, or 6.1%, and 3,892 jobs, or 2.9%. Outside New York City, the rest of the state lost a net 826 places and 3,333 jobs.
New York Eats Here read the citywide totals, 1,102 fewer places and 726 fewer jobs, as less than one job per closure, a sign that tiny owner-run rooms were going under while bigger survivors absorbed their few workers. Take Manhattan out and the federal count shows a heavier loss: about four jobs gone for every net place lost, in the four other boroughs and in the rest of the state alike.
Small rooms still look like they are closing fastest. In the four boroughs, places fell about twice as fast as jobs. But that citywide total only looks small because Manhattan’s gains cancel most of the boroughs’ losses, and outside Manhattan the jobs are falling along with the places.
Sources
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages
- Bloomberg (Nacha Cattan): NYC restaurants shut off air, close on Sundays as costs surge
- New York Eats Here: New York lost more restaurants this year than in the pandemic. Manhattan got off easy.
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