NORTH TONAWANDA, N.Y. — ​A popular sports bar & restaurant will soon be opening its doors once again.

What You Need To Know

  • Brownie's Sports Bar and Tavern announced this month it's opening back up March 2
  • The popular establishment closed last year due to the pandemic
  • COVID-19 relief helped the restaurant get back on its feet 

Brownie's Sports Bar & Tavern will reopen March 2.

"Brownie's is back," said Steve Brown, who owns Brownie's Sports Bar & Tavern with his wife, Lynda. 

Back in November, he posted on Facebook tearfully announcing Brownie's was closing amid the pandemic.

Brown said, "I was hoping and praying it was temporary, we were running out of money, we had X amount of dollars left and I still have to survive. I still have bills to pay, so we had to budget accordingly based on that."

Those prayers seem to be answered. Earlier this month, the owners took to Facebook to share good news: they plan to open back up next month.

Brown said, "Just the feedback we got once we did announce that we were coming back from Facebook and the social media, it's been crazy, crazy good."

Brown admits COVID-19 relief from Washington took too long but it did play a major factor in getting them back on their feet.

"We did get our second round of the PPP which is the big reason why we're able to get reopened so we're thankful for that. If we didn't get that, there'd be a for sale sign on the building to be honest with you," Brown said. 

Now they're looking toward the future and welcoming back their customers in a few weeks. One of Steve's employees is set to take on a new role as the operations manager and executive chef.

"We did change the menu up a bit, added some fresher things to the menu, we want to improve upon what we did well and add some new things that people hopefully will really like and stick with our identity," said William Corbett, the operations manager and executive chef.

"Unfortunately we had to close for a while but we're trying to take that negative and turn it into a positive and be able to just kind of reset, get things back to where they should be, getting our service back up to 100 percent," he added.

It's recommended you call ahead of time if you plan to dine-in at Brownie's. They plan to be open Tuesday-Thursday from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. and Friday-Saturday 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. They're closed Sunday and Monday. This could change depending on the COVID-19 restrictions in place.