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The end-of-year holidays, from Thanksgiving onward, used to be a time for families and friends to get together and appreciate each other’s cooking as well as their company, but increasingly the cooking is being outsourced, and restaurants are cashing in on that.
Steve DiFillippo, CEO of the 10-unit Davio’s Northern Italian Steakhouse, based in Boston, started offering Thanksgiving dinner at his restaurants around 10 years go.
“Growing up, I never would have gone out for Thanksgiving, but things are different now,” he said. “Now it’s busier than Mother’s Day. Thanksgiving is the busiest day of the year.”
Davio’s offers a traditional Thanksgiving turkey dinner with all the trimmings for $65, and for another $12 guests can get “Tomorrow’s Sandwich” of enough turkey, stuffing, gravy and cranberry sauce to make a few sandwiches on Friday.
“It’s very popular. People love it,” DiFillippo said.
Last year, Davio’s started doing turkey takeout on Wednesday. “It’s incredible how much business we get from it,” he said.
He’s not alone. Catersource, a leading resource for catering and event professionals, projects that total catering sales in the United States will grow by more than 25 percent in 2018, to $67.8 billion from $54 billion in 2017. Of that, $15.8 billion will be from private dining in restaurants, nearly double the sales of $8.2 billion in 2017. Another $14.4 billion will be from quick service and retail — about the same as last year.
“Thanksgiving is our busiest day,” said Akasha Richmond, chef-owner of Akasha and...