Let’s be upfront: we don’t cater turkey dinners. If you need a roasted bird with stuffing and cranberry sauce on the fourth Thursday of November, we’re the wrong call and we’d rather tell you now.
But here’s the thing about Thanksgiving week in Alpharetta — the turkey dinner is only one of the meals. There’s the office Thanksgiving lunch the week before. There’s Friendsgiving, which is a party, not a ceremony. There’s the night before, when the house is full of relatives who just got off a plane and nobody wants to cook. Those meals need feeding too, and that’s exactly where we’re useful.
1. The office Thanksgiving lunch
Most Alpharetta offices do their Thanksgiving thing in the week or two before the holiday, usually as a team lunch. Turkey doesn’t travel well to an office and nobody wants to carve at a conference table, which is why Italian has quietly become the default for these.
Trays of baked ziti and fettuccine hold heat through a long serving line, they portion cleanly onto a paper plate, and they don’t require anyone to play host. Our standard packages cover it:
- La Festa Italiana — one pasta, one salad and dessert, with garlic rolls. $215 (10), $320 (15), $530 (25).
- Celebration Package — one pasta, one entrée, one salad and dessert. $235 (10), $350 (15), $580 (25).
- Italian Classic — pasta, pizza and salad. $230 (10), $425 (20).
Want the exact number for your event? These are standard package prices. Tell us your headcount, date and delivery address and we’ll send back an exact all-in total — delivery and setup included, no service charge added later.
2. Friendsgiving
Friendsgiving is a different animal from Thanksgiving. It’s usually a weekend in November, the guest list is friends rather than family, and the whole appeal is that it’s not a formal production. The host who tries to roast a turkey for fourteen people in a rented kitchen is the host who spends the evening in the kitchen.
The move is to cater the main and let everyone else bring sides and wine. A pasta tray serves 10 / 15 / 25 for $75 / $112 / $187, so two trays and a salad feeds a serious crowd for less than most people spend on the bird alone. Add garlic rolls and a dessert tray and you’re done — and you actually get to sit down at your own party.
3. The night before Thanksgiving
This is the meal nobody plans for. Family arrives Wednesday evening, the kitchen is already staged for tomorrow, and the last thing the host wants is to cook a second dinner on top of the one they’re prepping.
Wednesday before Thanksgiving is one of the busiest pickup nights of the year for us, and for good reason — a couple of large pies and a pasta tray solves the whole evening. If you know you’ll have a full house, call ahead that afternoon rather than at 6pm. Our short-notice catering can usually flex, but Thanksgiving Eve is the one night we’d ask you not to test it.
4. The weekend after
By Saturday, everyone is genuinely tired of leftovers. Pizza and pasta are the traditional reset button, and if you still have houseguests, feeding them something that isn’t turkey is a small mercy. This is also when a lot of the youth sports and church groups in Alpharetta schedule their end-of-season gatherings — see sports banquet catering if that’s your November.
Feeding a big one
Church Friendsgivings, neighbourhood potlucks and company-wide Thanksgiving lunches routinely run past the 25-person tiers above. We cater large events from 50 to 500+ guests, quoted to headcount. Give us the number, the date and where it’s going, and we’ll build the order around it.
The vegan guest at a Thanksgiving table
Thanksgiving is the hardest holiday of the year to be vegan at, because the entire meal is built around the one thing you don’t eat. Our Vegan & Plant-Based menu caters like anything else — vegan baked ziti with vegan cheese, vegan sausage & peppers pasta, and salads made with vegan dressings rather than just the leaves left over. Order a vegan tray alongside the rest and the plant-based person at your table gets dinner, not a side dish. Details: vegan & gluten-free catering.
When to call
Thanksgiving week compresses everything into a few days, so the ordering window is tighter than it is for December parties:
- Office Thanksgiving lunches — book by the first week of November. These cluster into the same handful of weekday slots.
- Friendsgiving — a week or two ahead is plenty for a weekend date.
- Thanksgiving Eve — call that morning at the latest. Not the same evening.
- Thanksgiving Day itself — we’re closed. Plan around it.
Feeding people somewhere in Thanksgiving week? Call (770) 475-0369 or request a catering quote and tell us which of these it is — we’ll take it from there.