There will be plenty of options come Thanksgiving Day at Cafe Roma in San Luis Obispo and plenty of people to serve.
“We do a little bit over 500 dinners and a little bit over 40 dinners to go," said co-owner Marco Rizzo. "So we're taking care of a lot of families, a lot of couples and a lot of people.”
The Rizzo family has owned the restaurant for 44 years and they're in their 15th year of serving Thanksgiving dinners.
“We start actually, believe it or not, in June, July to make sure our suppliers have our turkey available for us,” Rizzo explained.
Months in advance, the team, including Chef Carlo Ochetti, is thinking about who and what they’ll need.
“Figuring out what you need by the end of August into September, ordering the turkeys, letting the employees know when the day they need to work, what day they need to work so they can be ready for it,” Ochetti said.
Cafe Roma ordered 30 turkeys with each one serving around 25 people on average as well as 80 pounds of short ribs and between 60-70 orders of salmon.
“It's a well-oiled machine at this point," said co-owner Saro Rizzo. "Then, of course, you always have to plan for the unexpected.”
The unexpected being the 10-15% of the total reservations that can change all the way up to the night before. Despite some cancellations and no-shows, Mark Rizzo says from the time they open to the time they close, it’s packed.
“It's basically a full house till 9:00 at night,” he said.
Meanwhile, at other restaurants around San Luis Obispo, the Madonna Inn expects around 1,700 meals to be sold between the steakhouse and cafe, according to Clint Pearce. At the Apple Farm, reservations have been sold out for weeks with just north of 360 dinners expected to be served.
Cafe Roma’s doors will open at noon with their final reservations being seated at 7 p.m.
Marco Rizzo says the only other day that compares to Thanksgiving is graduation weekend at Cal Poly.
For a full list of restaurants open in the area on Thanksgiving, click here.
