Gigi's Restaurant reopens Tuesday after a five-day hiatus. The popular soul food restaurant had to take a break after a successful grand reopening last week.
The owner, Darryl Harvin, says they used the break to hire more staff and reassess how they will serve the influx of customers visiting the restaurant.
"Buffalo, you know our community is a community that they love what they love and they miss what they miss so, I joke around with people that I don't think people haven’t eaten in three years," Harvin joked.
Harvin says the restaurant was overwhelmed by the positive support from the community. The original restaurant shut down due to a fire three years ago.
Following their grand reopening at the Northland Workforce Training Center, Harvin said they needed to take a step back to ensure the success of the new Gigi's.
Harvin told Spectrum News figuring out how to meet the demand is a good problem to have.
"We weren't prepared, adequately prepared, from a staffing standpoint," said Harvin. "We were almost thinking that we could jump into some aspect of what old Gigi’s was like and we couldn't do that it was too big of an operation."
Saturday, Gigi's held a job fair and hired some new employees, but are still looking for more servers.
Harvin says he's still striving to live up to the legacy of Gigi's, founded by his late mother Blondine in 1959.
"The waits were too long and it just wasn't fair, my mother wouldn't have wanted us to continue."
Tuesday, customers will see slight changes including dedicated lines for take-out and dine-in customers.
Though the method at which service is being delivered is changing, Harvin says the atmosphere and soul at Gigi's will not.
"Gigi’s has been one of those places where the politicians know they can come and talk and find friends. When there's family reunions in town, they know, ‘let's go to Gigi’s,’ that's our starting point, we'll go and get breakfast, so it's community in every way that you can think about it."