Buffalo, NY (WBEN) As New York State reached the 70 percent vaccination milestone Tuesday, Governor Cuomo lifted the state's COVID restrictions.
Restaurant owners wasted no time in reacting with optimism.
Greg Duell of Duff's at Eastern Hills Mall calls it a great day. "We have 100 percent capacity, we can put all of our tables back. It means we can provide more income sources for our servers, we can buy more food for our vendors," says Duell.
"Buffalonians are happy because it will be less awkward to walk in. It's back, and now it's just building it back to what it was in 2019, and rock and roll from there."
Duell says the masking and physical barriers are going away at his restaurant. "I'm excited to have people walk into a restaurant and have it look normal. The state of emergency is over," says Duell.
Duell predicts restaurants will recover quickly. "We're going to be okay, thanks to the support of our neighbors in Buffalo," notes Duell.
For Jimmy Butera of Butera's Craft Beer and Craft Pizza in Hamburg, "It's amazing, exhilarating. It's full of emotions."
Butera says it's been 16 months since there's been a sense of normalcy and now doesn't fear customers doing anything to risk their liquor license. "It's a big relief for us," adds Butera.
As far as his restaurant's dividers, Butera says he'll dismantle them from his bar. His dining room, not so much. "I know we got a lot of positive feedback from out customers saying they enjoyed those. It's a little more private setting for them," explains Butera. He says those barriers were decorative. "They look like a brick wall with my logo in it, so it was more of a nice visual for them," says Butera.
But Butera believes it will take more time to recover fully. "Getting out of the woods financially will take a couple of years. I think restaurants will be struggling for the next 24 months," says Butera. One of his biggest challenges will be staffing. "We're not going to man the ship properly when all the people are coming out, excited to be socializing again. I'm fearful we're going to cut hours and lose valuable time to rebuild our businesses because we don't have the staff to do that," notes Butera.
Butera says he hopes the state will bring back the to-go alcohol policy that was granted as an emergency order during the pandemic, but not extended by the legislature before session ended. "That was a huge program that saved so many businesses," says Butera, who adds that was more beneficial than anyone could realize.
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