While the runway of Arnold Palmer Regional Airport was quiet Thursday, the DeNunzio’s Italian Restaurant above the empty terminal was bustling with activity.
Red and white poinsettias and soft yellow Christmas lights greeted customers as they shed their umbrellas and winter jackets. Wait staff weaved through the diners to resupply the buffet tables in the dining room and banquet hall.
The Unity restaurant sat 800 reservations Thanksgiving Day — not to mention the 1,200 combined reservations and 100 to-go meals served at its Jeannette and Monroeville locations.
DeNunzio’s was just one of the restaurants in the region that carried on a tradition of offering service on Thanksgiving — to the delight of thousands of diners.
Lisa McCallen has Thanksgiving reservation scheduling down to a science.
“It’s a challenge to make sure you have enough seats for everyone and don’t go without empty tables,” said McCallen, banquet manager. “Then, if you overbook, you’ve disappointed people that have a reservation.”
McCallen started working at DeNunzio’s in 1977, making pizzas at its Jeannette location. She has worked at the Unity restaurant since it opened in 2004 — missing only one Thanksgiving shift.
“It’s a necessary evil for what we do for our livelihood,” she said. “It’s just about accommodating the people who enjoy coming to the restaurants for dinner. I can celebrate tomorrow or tonight. It’s just more important to accommodate the customers.”
The restaurant is always fully booked with reservations on Thanksgiving, McCallen said.
“I could have probably booked it three times,” she said. “That’s how many people want to come.”
A few flight passengers typically walk into the restaurant without a reservation on the holiday, she said, but no flights were scheduled Thursday.
Come Thanksgiving Day, half of the work of the holiday is already over, Executive Chef Justin McCready said.
The Monday before Thanksgiving is crunch time for McCready and the rest of the kitchen staff as they prepare all of the food for the buffets.
“You’ve got to get it all done,” said McCready, who has worked at the restaurant for more than 14 years. “You don’t want to come in Wednesday, the day before, and have to do everything. You want to focus on the attention to detail — just odds and ends and small things, anything you miss.”
But McCready still works a 12-hour day before going home to celebrate Thanksgiving with his family.
“Running the whole kitchen and everything … we have to kind of oversee everything, so we’re going to be here regardless,” he said.
600 in Scottdale
For Carson’s Tavern in Scottdale, Thanksgiving is one of the busiest days of the year, office manager Emily Roth said.
Carson’s sets up three buffet tables on Thanksgiving — including a full salad bar, turkey, prime rib and an extensive dessert selection.
“Our kitchen, they were here super-early in the morning (Wednesday),” Roth said. “They’ll work all day. We cut a million desserts.”
The restaurant served nearly 600 people Thanksgiving Day and prepared about 90 take-out orders.
Roth says restaurant staff don’t seem to mind working on the holiday.
“It’s good money,” Roth said. “We really don’t have an issue with staffing that day. Everyone chips in, and we’re like a family, so we all don’t mind working together.”
‘Well-organized madhouse’
For Andrew Ferri, working at the Lamplighter restaurant in Salem on Thanksgiving is a form of holiday celebration.
Ferri’s family opened the Lamplighter in 1967. He started helping at the restaurant on Thanksgiving when he was a kid, cutting pies for dessert.
About 60 to 70 restaurant staff worked Thursday to handle the holiday load — which includes nearly 1,600 diners, more than 300 individual to-go dinners and about 60 full family meals, Ferri said.
The restaurant started offering individual to-go meals during the covid-19 pandemic, Ferri said. Small families or people who want to bring a meal to a loved one in a nursing home opt for the take-out option.
“It is a madhouse on Thanksgiving, but a very well-organized madhouse,” he said. “There will probably be a line out in the lobby pretty much all day long.”
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Despite the constant shuffle of people in and out of DeNunzio’s on Thanksgiving, Jan Gozdick enjoys working the holiday shift.
“I like to see people smile, have a good time and relax,” she said. “They don’t have to do any dishes. I like to make people happy.”
Gozdick has worked at the restaurant as a server for two decades. She spent 15 years at the airport’s former restaurant, the Blue Angel Bar & Lounge, before the lease changed hands in 2004.
She has never missed a Thanksgiving shift — even when she had to wake up early to prepare her family’s holiday meal before heading off to work.
“(At) 2 a.m., I’d start doing the turkey and make sure everything is done,” she said.
But Gozdick wouldn’t change her profession for anything.
“It’s a fun situation,” she said. “I never get bored.”