PORT JEFFERSON, NY — Three years ago, the crew at The Steamroom in Port Jefferson noticed there was a span of a few days over the Thanksgiving holiday where the local homeless population and other folks who suffer from food insecurity, did not have a place to go for a nice, hot meal.
They had done some work with Welcome Friends Soup Kitchen, over time getting to know some of the clientele and some of the people that need help every week.
“One of the things with with the soup kitchen is that they’re not open — they don’t have anybody to help them on the holiday itself, and they don’t do Wednesdays and Fridays,” said Vinny Titer, the restaurant’s general manager. “Normally, I believe they’re open Tuesday and Thursday. So they would be without any meals for these folks for three days straight.”
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Patch has reached out to the soup kitchen.
To get a better turnout last year, they decided to open it up to others who might not consider themselves needy.
Find out what's happening in Port Jeffersonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
“We started talking in-house here about it and we realized that there’s plenty of folks that could use a free meal but maybe they don’t consider themselves needy,” he said, adding that widows and widowers might also not have a place to go.
The crew decided to band together and decided to offer a free turkey dinner with all the trimmings on Thanksgiving.
“So in order to try to get this out to as many folks that could use it as possible, we said, ‘Hey, we’ll just put it up there as a free meal for everybody’ and this way nobody has to feel ashamed or that they’re taking advantage or anything along those lines.”
Last year, the restaurant served around 200 meals, but this time around Titer expects that number to double to 400.
Between 12 and 5 p.m., the restaurant will serve meals with the food donated by DiCarlo Food Service, and the staffing is supplied by the restaurant.
“I’ll be here personally, all my management will be here and it’s a nice way to spend the afternoon before we go home to our own families,” Titer said.
The restaurant will also be open on Thursday to the general public with one of the two dining rooms dedicated to serving the restaurant’s normal menu. The Thanksgiving dinner will be served in the glass atrium on the rear deck.
“All the welcome,” he said. “If you need a place to go to enjoy the holidays, please come visit us.”
The restaurant is located at 4 East Broadway in Port Jefferson.
For more information, call 631-928-6690.
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