A frozen turkey can take several days to thaw, and then several more hours (or longer) to cook.
For people who don’t have that kind of time, or who would rather spend it enjoying the company of their family and friends, restaurants and grocery stores around the Central Valley are offering catered holiday meals.
Aaron Nielsen, the owner of Southern Hospitality Co., has been offering catered holiday meals for the last eight years. His catered meals are à la carte, so people can pick and choose which dishes they want to order, as opposed to a set meal.
Southern Hospitality Co. offers traditional turkey and honey baked spiral ham, as well as full assortment of sides like parmesan and bacon butter brussels sprouts, deviled eggs, mashed potatoes, dinner rolls and a $22 pumpkin pie.
All orders have a $150 minimum, and the cut-off day to order a Thanksgiving meal from Southern Hospitality is the Monday before Thanksgiving.
“I get phone calls the day of,” Nielsen said.
If you don’t want to cook a Thanksgiving meal like this one, you can get a fully cooked meal from local restaurants and grocery stores. Roberto Rodriguez St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Southern Hospitality Co. offers delivery or pickup options on Thanksgiving, which not all places do. Phoenician Garden, which also offers holiday catering, is closed on Thanksgiving, so it tells customers to have the food picked up or delivered Wednesday, Nov. 25, with an ordering deadline of Tuesday, Nov. 24.
Instead of turkey or ham, Phoenician Garden offers lamb shank with rice or potatoes and sautéd vegetables or family-style chicken shawarma. The restaurant also has trays of salads and desserts, and offers individual plates for people with dietary concerns.
There are also options for those who want to splurge for the holiday. Max’s Bistro is offering a $400 family meal — and a $50 individual meal. The family meal serves 6 to 8 people, but the family meal and the individual meal come with the same food: roast turkey breast, organic spring greens salad, artisan dinner rolls, buttermilk mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, sourdough stuffing, cranberry chutney and a house-baked pumpkin pie with whipped cream topping.
Max’s Bistro has offered a holiday catered meal every year since the pandemic, and the restaurant sells hundreds of meals every year. Owner J.J. Wettstead says about 60 or so of those meals will be the large family meals, while the rest are individual plates for people who might have smaller families or might not be able to go home and still want a turkey meal.
“We absolutely love being able to provide that service,” Wettstead said.
There isn’t a set number of meals Max’s Bistro will prepare for Thanksgiving, but Wettstead said the restaurant’s chef determines how many plates the kitchen can reasonably cook and the team works from there.
The Bistro sells out of Thanksgiving plates every year. Wettstead expects to be sold out again next week.
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Amber Hair (they/them) is the food and restaurants reporter and influencer. Amber has been in professional journalism for more than a decade, writing for outlets like the Orlando Sentinel, The Villages Daily Sun, the Pacific Coast Business Times and others. In their spare time, they enjoy going to concerts, reading and spending time with their cats.