Though many enjoy cooking with their families on Thanksgiving, some revelers are turning to other options, especially with smaller gatherings due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
With a number of families leaving the cooking to the professionals, takeout for Thanksgiving remains popular, but D.C. restaurants are noticing smaller orders this year.
Danny Lledó, with the newly-formed Xiquet restaurant in D.C.’s Glover Park neighborhood, said orders tended to be smaller this year.
“Out of all of our orders, there was a significant amount of half-turkeys and chickens. A normal family may go over to grandma’s house and now they are cooking turkeys for themselves, and we just provide a good option,” he said.
Lledó added that his bistro actually sold out of Thanksgiving orders last Saturday but they still had people calling Thursday morning to see if there were any birds left. Xiquet is a Valencian restaurant that uses a wood-fire kitchen and slowly roasts its meat over a grill.
“We opened in March. We opened up for one week and then had to close for the pandemic. We learned to adapt for to-go orders in general,” Lledó said.
But he assured patrons that the dining room is still open and following proper procedures for dining under coronavirus restrictions.
Baker’s Daughter also saw a high-volume of to-go orders for Thanksgiving this year. Matt Baker, the owner and head chef at the Ivy City restaurant, said that nearly 160 families placed orders this year for turkey and all the other Thanksgiving essentials.
“We saw orders come in pretty earlier this year, which means more people were planning ahead this year, which is great for us,” Baker told WTOP.
Baker said over 120 people waited in line to pick up their order on Thanksgiving morning.
“We are really appreciative, and we will do something similar to this for Christmas and the holidays this year,” Baker said.
