It’s Thanksgiving time again, are you already planning your marathon Thanksgiving Day meal? If not, don’t panic. The food industry is gearing up to help you out this year.
Eating out or getting takeout at Thanksgiving has become a trend as revelers seek to limit the amount of time they spend in front of a hot stove or a sink full of dirty dishes and more time with family and friends.
While fewer people are expected to eat out this year because of the pandemic restrictions, and many families will likely limit the size of their celebratory gatherings, more people are expected to buy all or part of their Thanksgiving meal ready-made.
According to a survey conducted by the National Restaurant Association, nearly one in every 10 adults ate their holiday meal at a restaurant last year. Also, more than one in 10 said they expected to buy takeout food for part or all of the holiday meal.
At Highland Park Market the store’s chefs were finalizing their Thanksgiving dinner menus in September this year. In recent years the store has been seeing an uptick in the number of customers buying part or all of their holiday meals, says owner Tim Devanney.
“It’s just been growing every year because people just don’t have time. They'll come in last minute to buy food or they’ll place orders ahead of time and then come in the day before or a couple days before and pick it all up. On Thanksgiving Day they can just pop all the food in the oven to reheat it.”
Highland Park offers a wide variety of side dishes for Thanksgiving; mashed white and sweet potatoes, scalloped potatoes, green beans stuffing, gravy, rolls, just to name a few. If you just want to buy desserts for the special day the store has 10 different kinds of pies available, as well as fruit tarts and cakes.
Jason Mease, Highland Park’s deli manager, says the store offers two different meal packages. One feeds 10 to 12 people and comes with a fully cooked turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, brusell sprouts, gravy, rolls and a choice of an apple or pumpkin pie.
The other meal package feeds 14 to 16 people and comes with all of the same foods, except it also includes both pies and a bigger turkey.
The meals sell for $140 for the smaller option, $189 for the larger.
Another popular option, Mease says, is to buy all the sides, but cook your own turkey "to get that good turkey smell" all day.
He expects more sales of the smaller meal packages this year as more families will likely limit their guests on Thanksgiving Day.