Buffalo, NY (WBEN) Oh Danny Boy, it's been a while!
Sunday afternoon, Delaware Avenue will be filled with marchers, floats, dancers and bands as the St. Patrick's Day parade returns to downtown Buffalo. Organizers and nearby restaurants are excited to see it back.
"It sure seems like the community is really excited about this parade and, and a big weekend," says John Morrison of United Irish-American Association. This weekend also has the NCAA first and second round games at Key Bank Center. He says the United Irish American Association has been organizing since the first of the year, putting everything together and getting groups lined up.
Morrison says there are a lot of entries this year. "We're thrilled to have a lot of the high school bands back and dancers back. These people have all been waiting for two years to, to have the opportunity to perform," says Morrison. He emphasizes this will be a family-friendly event.
Events get underway with a mass, says parade organizer Brigid Knott. "We go right from there and start lining all the groups together, turning that chaos of humanity into a parade by 2 o'clock," says Knott. She says it's a family day to celebrate the Irish heritage and contributions to WNY.
For businesses, it will be a very busy day. In fact, at Soho Burger Bar, Jay Manno warned a while back, it's all hands on deck. "We put out reminders in in our you know, group texts and emails saying listen, don't even think about requesting off," says Manno. He says it's been non-stop since last weekend's Leprechaun Crawl. He says he has provisions ready. "We're going to do some, some street food and stuff like that, we have some Reuben sandwiches we've been doing all weekend really, since last Saturday. But the food isn't as big as, as the beverages but everybody loaded up anyway," notes Manno.
Manno says Sunday will be busiest day of the year. "Nothing else comes close," says Manno. "I think we're setting records. 2 years back was the last one we had, which would have been what 2019, we broke the record from 2018. In 2018, we broke the record from 2017. So every year it just picks up momentum."
The 2020 parade was canceled just a few days before because of the start of the pandemic. The pandemic also canceled the 2021 parade.