2025 was supposed to be the year of the maximalist restaurant in New York City. Buzz as big as the arena-size spaces heralded the openings of spots such as Crane Club, La Tête d’Or and Time & Tide.
Instead, it’s the city’s tiny dining rooms that are grabbing outsize headlines.
Cozy places, with as few as 20 seats, a maximum of a dozen tables and a footprint of as little as 350 square feet, are now the hottest spots in town. Among the miniscule destination dining rooms: Ha’s Snack Bar, Le Veau d’Or, Chez Fifi and Cafe Kestrel.
The trend is grounded in more than just the cozycore vibe of a snug room. There are the obvious economic advantages: Costs from rent to labor to gas and ingredients are inevitably lower—no small consideration in a year of economic uncertainty. Operators have more flexibility in finding a compact space, which is key as rents are on the rise; there’s also more license to be quirky. Likewise, smaller spaces generate the appearance of scarcity (and lines outside, which is often part of the formula for creating a hot dining room in New York).
The ‘sneaker drop’ mentality
“The smaller the restaurant, the better,” says Eugene Remm, co-founder and partner at the wildly buzzy The Corner Store. While not tiny by current New York standards—it’s about 80 seats—it’s still minute compared with his famed Catch restaurants (he’s a partner in the group). “Decreasing supply increases demand, from sneakers to watches to restaurants,” he notes.
Rick Camac, managing partner of RDC Hospitality Consultants, says the appeal of a small space for operators is based on a perfect storm of factors, beginning with sky-high rents. When he signed a lease on his first restaurant, Five Ninth in the Meatpacking District in 2003, the rent was $7,500 a month. By 2013 it had increased 900% to $75,000. “New entrepreneurs cannot afford $900,000 in annual rent, or don’t want to take that chance,” he says. “Add the cost of construction and delays in permitting, supply chain issues, an unstable economy, rising labor costs and labor scarcity, and inflated food costs, and you can understand why smaller is appealing.”
Soaring costs
According to data from commercial real estate firm CBRE, the average ground floor asking rent for prime neighborhoods in Manhattan—like SoHo, upper Madison Avenue, The Plaza/Fifth Avenue and Times Square—hasn’t reached this level ($696 per square foot) since late 2019. “What is at an all-time high is the cost of construction/building out F&B [food and beverage] spaces because of a lack of second-generation F&B spaces that are creating challenges for new restaurants,” says Spencer Levy, senior vice president, retail advisory & transactional services at CBRE.
And then there’s labor. According to a 2024 report from the National Restaurant Association, labor costs have gone up 31% in the last four years. Camac estimates an average restaurant requires two servers and one bus person (paid at the city’s current tip-credited minimum wage of $11) for every 40 seats. Larger restaurants also incur costs for salaried management and increased kitchen staff. “The bigger issue is the management structure needed in a larger or finer dining establishment, for both front and back of the house,” he says.
David Foulquier, co-owner of Chez Fifi, the 45-seat uptown hot spot, says a neighborhood also dictates a restaurant’s size. “There are certain areas, like the Upper East Side, that command a small, cozy neighborhood style,” he says. Although his next opening is a 15,000-square-foot restaurant in Miami, in New York, he says, “people want to feel like they are in a small exclusive space.”
For other operators, the appeal of a smaller place is a more personal, vision-driven restaurant. Kirk Love, who just opened 6 in Carroll Gardens with Eleven Madison Park alum Nico Bouter, says the main driver of his 18-seat spot was intimacy. “We want every guest to feel seen and to do that we want to take the time to talk to them. We are not just saying, ‘Miller party, here is your table.’”
At 6, which offers a $165 tasting menu at a central six-person table, the experience starts in a living-room-style front room lounge equipped with a photo studio for taking your portrait. (The next day, an email arrives with the portrait and a thank-you note.) “The small size allows us to create personal connections that might be more challenging in a space that seats 250,” says Love.
Smaller spaces also mean more menu flexibility. James O’Brien, who operates the 25-seat Popina in Brooklyn, says he can make changes to his concept with relative ease. This summer he might start selling pizzas. “These decisions are easy to execute and roll out fast, versus [at] a huge restaurant it takes so long,” he says.
The appeal of a small dining room also lets restaurateurs repurpose underused areas in larger spaces. L’Abeille à Côte, the minute French-Japanese dining room in Tribeca, was originally designed as a lounge for the adjoining Sushi Ichimura. “We created this concept as every inch of space that can generate revenue helps make the math work in the expensive NYC real estate market,” says owner Howard Chang. “We might have been able to sell a few drinks to guests waiting for their experience to start at Sushi Ichimura, but as Côte it generates consistent revenue that supports the financial success of the group much more.”
Daniel Humm has implemented a similar model at Eleven Madison Park. The executive chef and owner has repurposed what was formerly private dining room space into The Studio at Clemente Bar, a nine-seat tasting counter. He calls it an “intimate counterpoint” to the downstairs restaurant’s grand art deco, 80-seat dining room. “It brings [the cooks] closer to the guests in a way and encourages members of the team who are usually in the kitchen to let their guard down and really get to know the people they are cooking for,” says Humm. “It’s almost like they are cooking and bartending for friends or family at their own house.”
The downside
There’s an obvious downside to smaller spaces: lower revenue. Chase Sinzer, co-owner of Claud (45 seats) and Penny (30 seats), says the key to thriving in a small space is to find a way to extend the average check. Since a smaller restaurant means fewer paying customers, operators have to have what he calls an “attractive program.” At Sinzer’s places, that’s a robust and extensive wine list. “Even with only 20 or 30 seats, you are making the same amount of revenue as you would [with] double the seats because the average check per guest is that much higher,” he says.
Another way to boost revenue: tasting menus. “From a business standpoint, it optimizes ingredient use while ensuring a steady, predictable revenue stream,” says 6 owner Love.
The longevity play
The trend toward small restaurants represents a full-circle moment for some veterans. Back in 2005, Mani Dawes opened Tia Pol with barely 40 seats on a then-barren stretch of lower 10th Avenue. “Our size is the reason we have been able to be so successful over 20 years,” she says, in a nod to the intimate ambience. “There’s a sense that we are in this together, that our guests are on board for whatever our restaurant will deliver.”
The other advantage of a cubby-size restaurant, Dawes notes, is that it never feels empty. “Even on our slowest night, there is a perceived liveliness, like a tapas bar in Madrid.” That in turn helps create longevity. “There is that thing when a restaurant hits middle age and is not getting all the press and hits that sales slump that is so much more devastating in a larger restaurant,” she says. “It’s harder to right a huge ship than a small boat. It’s easier to weather the storms.”
And for Love, small restaurants match today’s moment. “I think people in 2025 are so hungry for connection and hungry to feel human and have experiences that are not contained on a six-inch diagonal screen,” he says.
