WalletHub Analyst Warns Many Black Friday Deals Aren\u2019t Real Discounts<\/a><\/p>\nRod Lewis said the tradition began 12 years ago during a particularly lonely holiday with his daughter while he was working retail.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“When you work retail for Black Friday you work all night Wednesday and then you come back Friday morning real early,” Lewis said. “That Thanksgiving Day my daughter and I went to Luby’s and it was the saddest thanksgiving we ever had and I told my daughter ‘I’ll never ever do that again.’ So the next year we opened our house up and we had 27 people show up at our house for Thanksgiving.”<\/p>\n
More than a decade later, that small gathering has become an island institution. Now in its fifth year at the HardKnocks restaurant location, Lewis says the turnout for his “favorite day of the year” grows each year.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe opened up this location five years ago\u2026 this is the 5th year having it here and as you can see I’m surrounded by 300 of my best friends.\u201d<\/p>\n
For people like Robert Birney, who moved to the island without any family nearby, the event has become a holiday home. He first came three years ago after being invited by his neighbor, Lewis himself, and he\u2019s been back ever since.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe lives a block down (from me),” Birney said. “This iRobs the 3rd year I’ve been here and I don’t have any family down here, so everyone gets to come together and celebrate the special day.\u201d<\/p>\n
The event isn\u2019t just powered by the Lewis family or HardKnocks itself as the only restaurant staff on the clock were two bartenders. Making up for them were dozens of everyday people who poured in to help and they rarely arrived empty-handed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSo this one was smoked, we deep fried three turkeys and baked two,” said Steven Armstrong of American Legion Post 229 while slicing a turkey. “But the American Legion Post 229, the Islander post, made five turkeys for this island event because we know that family is a part of what we do at the American Legion.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Armstrong, the holiday is both a community commitment and a family tradition.<\/p>\n
\u201cI could cook all day long every year,” he said. “But my wife says \u2018number 1, we got to go to HardKnocks because it\u2019s Rod (Lewis), and it\u2019s family and it\u2019s the island.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
As hundreds of people, some of whom strangers until today, wished each other a happy thanksgiving, the message was clear: on Padre Island, no one needs to spend Thanksgiving alone.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HardKnocks Sports Grill brought hundreds together on Padre Island for its annual Thanksgiving meal, offering food and fellowship…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":67989,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156],"class_list":{"0":"post-67988","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-corpus-christi","8":"tag-corpus-christi","9":"tag-corpus-christi-headlines","10":"tag-corpus-christi-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67988"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67988\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}