NYC takes a lunch break

I'm learning how to feed my kids lunch in the NYC. When I lived in CA, a typical day would include a bagged lunch and a picnic. It wasn't anything special and it was anywhere. A park bench. On a blanket if I had one in the van. Or sometimes it was in the van if the weather was lousy. It made the day go a smoother for obvious reasons. I did it so much that picnic lunch days felt like the norm.
NYC isn't the place to be having a picnic at the moment so I'm feeling out of whack. And insanely jealous when my friends from SF post on facebook their having a picnic. We're experiencing one of the snowiest winters ever. Once I tried to make a lunch and have the kids eat it in the stroller. Huge disaster. The boys had one mitten on and the other they used to pick up food. But then their fingers got cold and they started dropping food. So these days I've been either going home for lunch or buying them a sandwich at a cafe and filling in the gaps with my own food. Sometimes i buy the entire lunch at the cafe too. I just need to be able to justify taking the cafe's tables somehow.
In regards to the picture: I can't wait for the tempeture to rise so we can use that picnic bench for what it's designed for.