People will soon have a taste of normalcy here in Western New York after Governor Andrew Cuomo gave the green light to start Phase 2. This means that starting Thursday, restaurants can start outside dining.

"We're super excited. We started sanitizing everything, doing the social distancing with the tables," Chris Hoak says, bar manager at Hoak's Lakeshore in Hamburg.

"As soon as it was announced my phone started to ring, the restaurant phone started to ring, people trying to get reservations in," Jay Manno, owner of Frankie Primo's +39 in Buffalo, says.

Our favorite restaurants around Buffalo are firing up their grills to feed the community in their patio dining areas. Restaurant owners were making plans with their teams to make sure they are fully staffed and prepared to handle to rush.

"We look like we're about 32 seats. There are some questions about whether or not they're allowed to sit at the bar because we do have an outdoor bar, but obviously if you did, you have to be six feet away, Manno says. 

"Probably at most, six people per table, but we'll probably have 40 to 50 people out there at one time," Hoak adds.

State officials are just as excited to keep the ball rolling when it comes to the phases of reopening. Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul says the food industry is of the biggest economic drivers, but if the community decides to go out for food, they need to continue social distancing as well as wear their mask.

"I don't want anything to delay Phase 3, which could happen in two weeks, which could be all restaurants and then we get to Phase 4, which is all gatherings. If everyone keeps doing what they have been doing for the past three months, we can perhaps get out of this sooner than we thought," Hochul says.

For any establishment that doesn't have the proper permits to serve outside, county officials say owners will have to obtain the right documents town by town.

"If you do not have a patio permit right now you need to talk to your town or city on that. Erie County cannot waive any rule that is a lower level government’s requirement," Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz says.