Photo by Sam Thiel Patrons enjoy the evening at Brau Brothers Brewing Company on Monday. Area bars and restaurants were able to reopen with outdoor seating.

MARSHALL — Not much was going to stop bar and restaurant-goers from supporting their local establishments on Monday, including Mother Nature throwing temps near triple digits or concerns with COVID-19.

This time, though, it looked and felt a little different. After navigating their way through extremely tough scenarios with having their businesses closed or limited to takeout or delivery for the past two months, area bars and restaurants took a step closer toward returning to normalcy by being able to reopen with outdoor dining capabilities after Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s recent executive order.

“It’s awesome,” Brau Brothers taproom manager Ana Busack said on being able to reopen with outside dining. “It’s really good to have the people back and a little more sense of normalcy. We are very lucky that we have this large patio so that we can have tables and spread people out. It’s exciting but it also comes with a lot of responsibilities with making sure we are sanitizing everything and people are sitting apart but overall it’s pretty awesome.”

When it came to getting their outdoor spaces ready, some restaurants were already prepared. Tim Clausen of the Wooden Nickel said aside from making sure that the tables were at least six feet apart, they did their typical preparations for their outdoor patio space.

Other establishments had to get creative. At Fuzzy’s, the bar doesn’t have a patio space, so owner Dan Fosvick said they had to fill out an application to the city and was grateful for the city council and parks department’s help in providing tables.

“My initial reaction was that it wasn’t favorable to me because we obviously don’t have the patio space that other places have. But after the city council last week approved the city parking lots to be used for bars and restaurants, as well as providing picnic tables, they’ve been tremendous with helping us out. It made all of the difference in the world,” Fosvick said. “I just want to thank the city and the city council for allowing us to use the space in the parking lots to serve our customers. Without this, I wouldn’t be able to be open.”

Every restaurant/bar is following the same protocols when it comes to having outdoor seating. Tables are limited to only four people at a time or up to six if they are from the same household. The maximum occupancy is 50 people and reservations are required beforehand. All restaurant and bar staff are required to wear face masks while customers are strongly encouraged to do so also.

Clausen and Busack felt their establishments had busy moments throughout the day in the first time with outdoor seating again. Fosvick said Fuzzy’s didn’t open until 5 p.m. on Monday, so their dinner rush started a little slow, but added they’re getting a sense of how to handle the new situation.

“It’s been since 5 o’clock so it’s been a little slow, but I didn’t start advertising until (Monday),” Fosvick said. “Now that I’ve got a feel for what’s going on and how to deal with the reservations, I’m sure each day/week will continue to get better.”

Despite outdoor seating being available, there are still concerns surrounding COVID-19. Over the weekend, Lyon County saw an uptick in the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19, rising to a total of 57 according to data from the Minnesota Department of Health. The MDH has also reported that more than 6,000 cases of community transmission where people had known contact with a person who tested positive for COVID-19 have been reported as well as more than 5,000 cases where people didn’t have contact with a confirmed COVID-19 case.

While Southwest Health and Human Services said it hasn’t seen any patterns or hotspots with the current COVID-19 cases across the county as of last week, the rise of the cases are likely due to the increase in the amount of people being tested as well as an increase in the spread of the disease, according to SWHHS.

While people may be still cautious with going back to restaurants, Busack said all they can do is just continue to keep taking the safety measures they are currently executing for both their employees and customers.

“We are taking all of the measures that we can and hoping that our customers are also, whether it’s washing their hands, keeping their distance and really staying around their families,” Busack said. “We are hoping that it doesn’t affect as much but we are aware that it could. We’re still doing online orders so that’s also an option if people are not comfortable yet to sit outside.”

But for right now, restaurants are just happy to have customers back in a somewhat familiar setting.

“We’re just glad to have people,” Busack said. “Make a reservation and come on over.”