Ten friends and a city that hates a reservation for eight
New York fights you at eight people — until you learn which tables were built for a crowd.
New York gets easier to love and harder to book at the same time. The tables that matter take reservations a month out and rarely for more than six; the apartments are small; the subway swallows your group whole and hands it back in pieces. And yet the best meals here — dim sum spinning on a lazy Susan, Korean barbecue you cook yourselves, a no-menu Italian dinner in the Bronx — are built for ten, not two. Bring four friends and New York is a great trip. Bring ten and a whole side of the city opens up that the couples never see.
This guide is for both trips. Where the advice changes with headcount, we flag it — at four to six you can improvise most of it; at eight or more, a few reservations and one group-chat rule buy everyone's freedom back. The deep dives live in our other New York guides.
One rule first: in a city this dense, the group that anchors two things a day stays friends. The one that schedules six misses five and resents the sixth. Pick your two, walk between them. Now — beds.
Where a group sleeps: one block downtown, or a loft across the river
Manhattan sells square footage by the thimble. Plan around that, not against it.
Book the neighborhood before the beds. The comfortable base for a group is the Lower East Side and East Village — walkable, loud in the good way, ringed by the bars and dumpling counters that turn "meet at 8" into a night. The catch is space: a Manhattan apartment that genuinely sleeps six is rare and runs roughly $500–800 a night; the "sleeps 10" listings are counting the couch, the other couch, and an air mattress with ambitions.
At four to six: take one apartment downtown and walk everywhere — Lower East Side or East Village to end the night on foot, the West Village if the group skews quieter and will pay for the charm.
At eight or more: cross the river. Williamsburg and Greenpoint in Brooklyn have the lofts and multi-floor apartments a big group needs, at square footage Manhattan can't touch — an L-train stop from the East Village, or a ferry from the piers. The veteran move is two apartments in the same building: two kitchens, two bathrooms of morning peace, and a door to close when ten is one too many. Long Island City does the same with newer towers and a skyline view. Book six to eight weeks out; double for December.
Someone will put their name on the lease and their card on the deposit for all of this. In this city, that's a genuine act of love. Be kind to that person. We'll come back to them at dinner.
Eating as a group without starting a reservation war
Some tables need a month's notice. The best ones just need you hungry and numerous.
The hard truth first: New York's trophy restaurants are hostile to groups. Carbone's red-sauce reservations open 30 days out and vanish in seconds; 4 Charles Prime Rib is one of the toughest tables in the country; Via Carota takes no reservations at all — romantic for two, a two-hour sidewalk vigil for ten. You can win them, but don't build the trip around them. Build it around the tables New York made for a crowd.
Golden Unicorn
An old-school Cantonese banquet hall on East Broadway, up the elevator, where dim sum still arrives on rolling carts and the big round tables come with a lazy Susan already turning. Ten is the right number — enough hands to flag down every cart (har gow, soup dumplings, rice rolls, sesame balls) and enough mouths for the whole steamed fish. No reservation for the carts: show up before noon on a weekend, take a number, and treat the room as part of the meal.
The rest of the big-table canon: Kang Ho Dong Baekjeong on the Koreatown strip of West 32nd, where you grill dinner at the table. Katz's Delicatessen on the Lower East Side, where the ticket system makes a party of ten just ten tickets. Ilili in NoMad for a Lebanese mezze feast built for sharing. And Xi'an Famous Foods or a slice standing up at Joe's Pizza for the meal where nobody has to agree on anything.
The one worth leaving Manhattan for: Dominick's on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, the real Little Italy. No menu — a waiter tells you what there is — communal tables that seat your whole group, family-style platters, cash only, a bill announced out loud at the end. It's the most group-native meal in New York, a $30 subway-and-walk from Midtown. The full map is in our food guide.
The things that only get better with more people
Per-room, per-lane, per-table — the city runs a whole economy that rewards a crowd.
New York hides its group bargains in plain sight. Start with a private karaoke room in Koreatown: Gagopa on West 32nd rents you your own room, bring-your-own-bottle, for about $9 a person an hour after 6pm — for ten of you, the cheapest three hours of joy in Midtown. Nobody watches but your people, and somebody will surprise you.
A karaoke room at midnight is the only room in New York that gets cheaper the more of you show up.— On group math
Broadway rewards a crowd too. The TKTS booth in Times Square sells same-day seats at 30–50% off, and most shows offer group rates at ten or more — one person handles the block, everyone reimburses, and the priciest night in town becomes a split. For the free version, the Staten Island Ferry costs nothing, passes the Statue of Liberty, and a deck full of your friends is a private harbor cruise at a public price. And when the weather turns, Coney Island is a whole group day for the cost of a few rides — the Wonder Wheel, the Cyclone, a Nathan's hot dog, and the beach.
Then the graze-and-scatter move for when nobody can agree: Smorgasburg in Williamsburg on weekends — a hundred food stalls, everyone eats what they want and reconvenes on the grass. At four to six you improvise all of this day-of; at eight or more, put one person on the karaoke room and the Broadway block — the only two that sell out. The full list is in our things-to-do guide.
Moving ten people through the subway
The subway is the move. Here's how to keep the group together and your phone in your pocket.
Forget the two-Uber convoy — in New York, ten people in cars means surge pricing, four vehicles, and a group scattered across a traffic jam. The subway is the move, full stop: $2.90 a tap with OMNY (tap your phone or card at the turnstile), it caps for the week after twelve rides, and it beats a taxi almost everywhere below 96th Street. At four to six, you barely think about it. At eight or more, agree the stop and the exit before you tap in, because a crowded train will split your group across three cars — regroup at the destination, not the platform, and let the doors go if half of you didn't make it. Another comes in four minutes.
The honest word on safety, since it's the question everyone's family asks: the subway is fine — the ride itself, day or night, is one of the safer bets in the city. The real rule is small: keep your phone in your pocket on a quiet platform. The one everyday hazard is a phone snatched at the platform's edge as the doors close, so don't stand at the lip filming the tunnel at 1am, and on an empty late-night platform keep together, back from the yellow line.
Above ground, the city is a walking machine. Downtown, dinner and drinks and bed sit ten minutes apart, and the walk across the Brooklyn Bridge at dusk or a loop through Central Park is the best free thing a group can do together. Base yourselves central and most nights you skip the subway entirely.
Three group days, honestly paced
Two anchors a day, a lot of walking between them. That's the whole plan.
Day one: land, drop bags downtown, and walk the Lower East Side until everyone's awake — bagels or a Katz's pastrami, no agenda. At night, the big one: dim sum is a lunch move, so tonight is Koreatown barbecue at Baekjeong, or the group's one hard-won reservation. A complete day.
Day two: the split-up, which is how big groups stay friends in a big city. Museum people to the Met or MoMA (pick one, not both — our museum guide makes the case); walkers across the Brooklyn Bridge into Dumbo; shoppers loose in SoHo; back together for a late lunch, then Central Park or the High Line. Evening: a Broadway show off the TKTS block, or the karaoke room.
Day three: dim sum at Golden Unicorn while the carts are busiest, then let the weather choose — Coney Island if it's warm, a long Dominick's dinner in the Bronx if it's not, Smorgasburg if it's a weekend. Farewell drinks somewhere you can all stand in a circle, then end on a stoop. You earned it.
A fourth day? A train up the Hudson to Cold Spring or Dia Beacon. A fifth? Now you want our comprehensive guide.
Where we would book
Direct where it counts, an app for the rest.
Apartments live on the usual platforms; at eight or more, message the host and ask straight whether the place holds ten or merely sleeps them — the good hosts tell the truth, and a search of the building name plus "reviews" catches the rest. The reservations that matter — Carbone, 4 Charles — open on Resy about a month out; set an alarm and pounce, or let them go. Baekjeong and most Koreatown tables take same-week bookings; Golden Unicorn and Katz's need none. Broadway is cheapest same-day at TKTS, or through a show's own group-sales line for ten-plus; skip the resale sites, which add margin, not seats. Karaoke rooms and the Bronx you just walk into. And the ferry, the bridge, and the park are, gloriously, free.
Related guides
- Your NYC Travel Guide — the whole city in one place.
- The NYC Food Guide — 30 restaurants we'd send a friend to.
- Things to Do in NYC — 23 plans, most of them better in a crowd.
- NYC Museum Guide — the ones worth splitting up for.
- NYC on a Budget — the whole trip for under $100 a day.
- NYC in December — markets, ice skating, cold walks worth the bundle.
- The Founder's NYC — where we actually go on our own money.
- Mexico City Group Trip Guide — the same job for CDMX: boats, big tables, beds for ten.
