Small town cafe prepares to give away hundreds of Thanksgiving meals for 9th year in a row
CLIFTON, Texas (KWTX) - Among the many Thanksgiving events happening tomorrow is the Corner Drug Cafe’s 9th annual Thanksgiving dinner.
Even before co-owners Ed and Phyllis Rieser opened up the cafe with their daughter, Ed says he wanted to find a way to give back to others.
“I thought even if we could find a location that can allow us to offer something like this, we wanted to go ahead and do that,” he shared.
So when they finally opened their cafe in 2017 they held their first annual thanksgiving dinner, serving 80 people. Now they serve over 600 people.
“We hit 600 last year and I bet we will hit 650 this year with people to serve,” Phyllis said.
At first they actually sat people down and served them, but after covid they turned it into a drive by.
“We have a runner that goes out to the car, gets your name and your pie number and how many dinners. Comes back here, we assemble the packaging, and out the door they go,” Ed explained.
Phyllis says so far this year they already have 601 preorders. Meaning their daughter, who’s also the chef, will start preparing everything at 2 in the morning with the help of some employees and volunteers.
“They make it all here,” Ed said, “four hundred, almost five hundred pounds of turkeys”.
And while they will accept donations, they don’t charge people anything for the meals.
“It’s free no matter what, you don’t have to give anything,” Phyllis said, “we just want to make sure that everybody gets a good Thanksgiving meal”.
Over the years they’ve had countless touching stories from this, Phyllis sharing just one of the many, about a thank you card from someone they served.
“In it was her check with her donation, and in it she says ‘please accept this donation, but please don’t cash the check until after the first of the month’. She said ‘but I just want to thank you so much, my boys and I probably would not have had a Thanksgiving dinner had you not done this event’. So needless to say we didn’t cash the check,” she recalled.
Which is why they look forward to this every year and plan to continue the tradition as long as they are able.
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