ORCHARD PARK N.Y (WIVB) — Kickoff for the Buffalo Bills season opener is right around the corner.
Bars and restaurants, like Danny’s South on Abbott Road in Orchard Park, are putting their game faces on.

“Our day starts at 6 in the morning and doesn’t end until 10, 11 o’clock at night on a football Sunday. It’s a whole other ball game,” said Danny’s owner Mark Ebeling. “It’s exciting, it’s a big part of the business, and the whole area here, you’ve got all these bars down the street and we all live off of it, it’s nice. The Bills are the best neighbors you could have.”

Near the stadium at Prohibition 2020, the staff is gearing up to serve fans again.

“It’s an awesome, hectic exciting feeling of course being right here in front of the home of the bills and the fans are absolutely amazing,” said kitchen manager Melissa Dyson. “But it just makes this hectic here just with wait times and trying to serve everybody in a timely manner.”

Dyson tells News 4 those wait times could be longer this season because they’re down a few cooks.

“I’ve been looking since we opened for two years, people say they want to work, they come in for the interview, there comes the day they’re supposed to show up and they don’t show up,” she said.

“Staff shortages is a real thing. Every restaurant, every business is having a problem with the staff, but especially restaurants right now. Cooks are hard to find anywhere even the whole wait staff in general,” said Chris McCann, who owns Mooney’s on Military Road in Kenmore.

McCann says it gets packed inside the restaurant on game day and he credits his current staff for handling the rush even with fewer workers.

“It’s exciting, especially in Buffalo it’s a football town, we’ve been preparing for this for a couple months now,” he said. “My staff is amazing, they work long hours, especially on Sunday, Mondays and Thursdays with football. It’s long long hours and hot kitchen and the patio. They work their butts off and just hard work gets us through.”