Everyone Plans the Dinner. Nobody Plans the Three Days Around It.
Thanksgiving gets planned down to the minute. The bird goes in at this hour, the sides come out at that one, somebody is assigned the pies. It is the most over-planned meal of the year.
And then there are the three days wrapped around it, which get no plan at all. The Friendsgiving the weekend before, thrown together in an apartment that does not have a dining table. The Thanksgiving morning where eight people are standing in a kitchen with nothing to eat until four in the afternoon. The Wednesday office half-day. The Friday where you cannot look at another container of leftovers.
Those are the days a neighborhood waterfront cafe is actually built for. We are at 10 Bay Ridge Ave, we open at 6 AM on weekdays, and we are not going to roast your turkey. Here is what we can do instead.
Thanksgiving Morning Is a Real Meal
The most common Thanksgiving mistake has nothing to do with the turkey. It is serving nothing at all before the meal.
The logic seems sound: save everyone's appetite for the big one. In practice, a house full of people with no breakfast starts grazing by eleven, finishes the cheese board you set out for later, and arrives at the table already full of the wrong things. Meanwhile the person cooking has been on their feet since seven with a cup of coffee and nothing else.
What works is savory and small. Egg sandwiches on a roll or a croissant. Avocado toast. Potatoes and eggs. A tray of croissants and muffins that people pick at standing up. And real coffee, in enough quantity that the cook is not making a fresh four-cup pot every forty minutes.
Breakfast on Thanksgiving is not competing with dinner. It is protecting it.
What does not work is the sweet, heavy brunch. Save the pancakes and French toast for a different Sunday. On this particular morning they land like a second dinner six hours too early.
Friendsgiving Does Not Have to Be a Turkey
Friendsgiving has quietly become the better holiday, and the reason is that nobody has to pretend. It usually happens the weekend before, in whoever's apartment is biggest, and the food is shared off the middle of a table rather than plated in courses.
That format is far more forgiving than a formal dinner, and it rewards food that holds. A roast demands that twelve people sit down at a specific minute. A table of trays does not care if your friends arrive across a two-hour window, which is what actually happens.
A Spread That Holds for Two Hours
- One pasta. A tray of ziti or penne in tomato sauce is the anchor, and it stays good at room temperature in a way that almost nothing else does.
- One real salad. A Mediterranean or Caesar salad cuts through everything else on the table. Keep the dressing on the side if the table is going to sit.
- Sandwiches cut in halves. Chicken cutlets, grilled cheese, a chopped cheese. Halves get eaten; whole sandwiches get claimed and abandoned.
- Soup, if it is cold out. A creamy tomato or chicken noodle in a cup is the thing people reach for after a walk from the subway in November.
- Pastries and cookies instead of a dessert course. Nobody wants to coordinate a dessert at Friendsgiving. A plate of pastries, black and white cookies and a chocolate chip cookie or two does the whole job.
- Coffee at the end. This is the single most forgotten item and the one that decides whether people stay another hour.
If you are hosting more than a handful of people, the catering side of this is a phone call rather than a form. Tell us the headcount, the time you need it ready, and how many people in the group are eating meat-free, and we will work the quantities out with you. Our guide to planning a holiday party in Bay Ridge goes deeper on formats and ratios if you are feeding a crowd.
The Wednesday Half-Day
The day before Thanksgiving is the strangest workday of the year. Half the office is already gone, the other half is watching the clock, and nobody is going to do anything useful after noon.
It is also the easiest morning of the year to look like a good manager. A breakfast spread that lands at nine on a day when everyone expects nothing is remembered far longer than the same spread in March. Sandwiches, a box of pastries, fruit, and enough coffee for the whole floor, and then you let people go. Our office breakfast guide covers the ordering mechanics, and office catering in Bay Ridge is the page to start from.
Houseguests, and the Walk That Saves the Day
Here is the local advantage nobody plans for. At some point on Thanksgiving Day, the kitchen will hold two people too many, and the kindest thing you can do is send four of them outside.
Bay Ridge is unusually good at this. Owls Head Park is a real hill with a real view. The Shore Road promenade runs for miles along the Narrows with the Verrazzano overhead. The 69th Street Pier at the end of our own street puts you out over the water with Manhattan to the north and Staten Island across the channel. Hand everyone a coffee, point them at the water, and reclaim your kitchen for an hour.
Coffees to go for a group of six takes two minutes if you call ahead and a good deal longer if you all come in and read the board. We pour La Colombe and brew Rishi tea, and the seasonal drinks are the right call on a cold afternoon by the Narrows.
The Day After
By Friday, leftovers have stopped being a gift. The turkey sandwich was good on Thursday night and is a chore by lunch, and the last thing anyone in the house wants is to turn the oven on again.
Friday is for food that tastes like nothing you ate yesterday. A cup of soup. A salad that is mostly green. A burger, if you have earned it. Cold-pressed juice, which on the day after Thanksgiving is less of a health decision than an act of self-defense. And coffee, because the shopping starts and somebody has to drive.
It is also the start of the Bay Ridge holiday season proper. The Dyker Heights Christmas lights begin drawing crowds right after Thanksgiving, and the walk is much better with something hot in your hand.
Two Things to Confirm Before You Plan
Two details decide whether any of this works, and neither of them should be assumed from a blog post.
Hours. Our regular schedule is 6 AM to 9 PM Monday through Friday and 7 AM to 9 PM on weekends, but a holiday week is not a regular week anywhere in the city. Call (718) 777-6969 or check hours and directions close to the date rather than planning around the normal timetable.
Lead time. Thanksgiving week is the busiest stretch of the year for every kitchen in Brooklyn. If you need a tray of anything at a specific hour, call as early as you can. A spread ordered two weeks out is a conversation; the same spread ordered the night before is a gamble.
The Short Version
Feed people something savory on Thanksgiving morning so they arrive at the table hungry for the right things. Build Friendsgiving around food that holds on a table instead of food that has to be plated. Use the Wednesday half-day for a breakfast nobody expects. Send the overflow down to the water with a coffee. And on Friday, eat something green.
Pier 69 Market is at 10 Bay Ridge Ave in Brooklyn, with delivery through GetSauce and catering by phone at (718) 777-6969. Browse the full menu, start a party catering order, or read our guide to breakfast on the Bay Ridge waterfront.
Plan the Days Around the Dinner
Friendsgiving spreads, Thanksgiving morning breakfast, and coffee for a full house at 10 Bay Ridge Ave. Call (718) 777-6969 to confirm holiday hours and lead times.
