Chef Tony Harrison, who operates Nor East at the Newcastle Cruising Yacht Club in Wickham, welcomed the gradual easing of the the lockdown restrictions.
"Once we can seat people out the front it will be a gamechanger, it means every day there is sun we can fill tables and stagger seating," he said.
Mr Harrison, a hospitality veteran who previously ran a restaurant of the same name at Queens Wharf and ran Bistro Lowlands for five years, expected some hospitality operators would be disappointed that the restrictions weren't loosened more.
"There's opportunity people can't see - this is 10 customers I didn't have yesterday," he said. "People will be hanging to get out of the house and say you can have a table for 10, I could sell a table of 10 degustation every day of the week and do it with one chef.
"It's adding capacity to our capacity to trade, it gives us a chance to talk to customers, it restores their faith in the venue."
Mr Harrison said the Club had 800 members, many of them seniors who had missed the venue.
"Some of them come to the club just to see us, it makes their day to see our lovely waiters - that's what hospitality is about,"he said.
Nor East will continue to run its now established takeaway offering.
"We have fought for business, so it's not what we are used to, but the club have been really good to us, they want us to reopen soon, we've changed our menu and adapted."
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