Stress Free Thanksgiving Dinner

Ideas 2 Go: Talkin’ Turkey    –   NACS Magazine, October 2012

By Al Hebert

Can a convenience store contribute to the mental well being of an entire community?

It’s totally possible if the store helps harried customers deal with a stressful, seasonal disorder: Thanksgiving dinner preparation.

“Holiday meal planning is a major stressor, especially for women who handle almost all of the logistics of preparation, then the cooking and details — while men are often busy with the television schedule of football games,” said Sally Broussard, nation- ally certified counselor with Spindletop Center, a mental health facility in Beaumont, Texas. “Along with cooking the meal, visiting in-laws and family dynamics, you have a tinderbox of problems,” she said.

For many consumers, working through to-do lists and grocery lists can feel like planning the invasion of Normandy, but a few c-stores are coming to the rescue.

They’ve found that by responding to customers’ desire for holiday help, they’ve turned a slower season into one of the busiest times of the year.

For The Birds

Paula Nwaeze, co-owner of Chef Point Café in Watauga, Texas said, “We started selling Thanksgiving turkeys the second year we were open. We might have sold 20. We kept selling more turkeys each year and last year we sold 150.”

Chef Point customers simply place an order for smoked or baked turkey; for people who want something different, prime rib is available.“Smoking turkeys is most efficient because our smoker is so big. We have turkeys everywhere when we’re smoking them,” said Nwaeze, adding, “if customers want something, you find a way to make it happen.”Alleviating the stress of preparing Thanksgiving meals for customers often just moves the stress to the store staff. Chef Point begins the smoking and baking four days in advance of the holiday and people begin scheduled pick-ups three days before Thanksgiving.

    Chef Franson Nwaez’s famous bread pudding

     is not a traditional Thanksgiving dessert,

     but it’s a favorite of Chef Point Cafe’ customers.

“We are constantly counting and re-counting to make sure we have enough turkeys. We buy extra in case of a miscount and we always have people calling at the last minute to pick up a turkey.” Vine Bros. in Centerville, Mississippi, is known for its smoked turkey.

Owner Benny Vine boasts, “We get some pretty big birds, 18 to 22 pounds, so it takes about four hours to smoke a turkey,” adding, “we have four smokers going all day Monday and Tuesday so customers can come in on Wednesday for pick up.”

Vine uses 24 square feet of cork- board with orders tacked on to keep up with progress. And while fried turkey is popular, preparing it is a challenge. “We used to fry turkey, but it takes up a whole fryer; 100 orders for fried turkey can shut the restaurant down, so we no longer offer that,” said Vine.

What About The Sides?
Traditional side dishes like cornbread stuffing and mashed potatoes with a choice of three different gravies offer customers variety. One popular side stands out as atypical Thanksgiving fare: macaroni and cheese. Chef Point Café chef Franson Nwaeze created a three-cheese macaroni dish that’s a customer favorite.

“You would think everyone wants what we think is tradition, but people have different traditions,” Paula, his wife, said. “One Thanksgiving someone asked for mac and cheese as a side. We decided to put it in the menu and had tons of orders for it, so we kept it.” As for dessert, apple pie is on most traditional holiday tables and Chef Point offers it, but the bread pudding is the customer favorite. “Our bread pudding is truly famous and people buy it in bulk. This is an unusual holiday dessert, but it’s our most popular,” explained Nwaeze, adding that they’ve experimented with other desserts, but they don’t sell.

In the small Mississippi community of Centerville at Vine Bros., traditional cornbread dressing is still the favorite side dish. “We make gallons of it and sell out,” according to Vine. Customers line up on Wednesday to pick up orders. Vine shares, “Thanksgiving is our busiest time. It involves the entire staff and we have an assembly line to put the orders together.” The store then closes on Thanksgiving Day.

Eat In Or Take Out?

Chef Point has always been closed on Thanksgiving Day, but this year will be different. “We’ve had customers request that we open. We expanded last year. There is more parking, more seating and we didn’t have anything else to do, so we’ll be serving Thanksgiving dinner here,” said Nwaeze.

But more often than not, customers are motivated to get Thanksgiving take-out, for a variety of reasons.Nwaeze speculates that it simplifies the holiday when traveling. “Everyone is responsible for bringing something. Rather than spend the day cooking, only to drive and spend time with a crazy family, take-out makes it easy.”

Besides, Nwaeze admits, “Some people just can’t cook a turkey and they don’t want to mess it up with the mother-in-law coming over.”

Al Hebert, the Gas Station Gourmet, explores America’s hidden culinary treasure: gas station cuisine. Hebert shares these stories and a recipe or two at GasStationGourmet.com.

Reprinted from NACS Magazine (October 2012) with permission. For more information about NACS, the association for convenience and fuel retailing, including retailer or supplier membership or subscription information for NACS Magazine, please go to www.nacsonline.com or contact NACS at (703) 684-3600.