With the Thanksgiving season officially upon us, Hoboken residents will have plenty of opportunities to give back to the community and can also look forward to the return of some great local traditions.
Perhaps the longest-running Turkey Day tradition in the Mile Square City will be returning to Mario’s Classic Pizza at 742 Garden Street. Owner Mario Albunia has served an annual free Thanksgiving meal for 18 straight years, even continuing the ritual in 2012 less than a month after Hurricane Sandy struck.
This year’s version, which is open to everybody, will be offering turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes and all the usual Thanksgiving fare starting at 11:30AM and running to 7PM. The restaurant accepts food donations from the community for the feast.
If early rising is more your scene, St. Matthew Trinity Lutheran Church at Eighth and Hudson Streets will offer a Thanksgiving breakfast as part of their LunchTime Ministry starting at 7:30AM. Modcup Coffee Company, who first got their start in Hoboken as a food truck, will be providing the caffeine for the event, which is looking for volunteers to help set up and serve the meal.
If you’re playing host to relatives and need a little help cooking the turkey, a historic bakery being revamped will be happy to lend a hand. Antique Bakery at 122 Willow Avenue closed earlier this year and moved its operations to Jersey City, but will be coming back as Antique Bar and Bakery in Hoboken sometime next month.
To help usher in the new digs, the bakery will reopen their doors this Thanksgiving to revive a decades-old ritual of roasting turkeys for locals free of charge in their 15-foot long brick oven. Head chef Paul Gerard says the bakery will season customer’s turkeys for them in tin trays before covering them in foil to “keep in the juiciness.” The bakery will also be handing out free baguettes as part of the festivities.
The week after Thanksgiving, the Hoboken Green Team will be holding two food drives and a reusable bag giveaway at local supermarkets. On Tuesday, November 29th, the group will be at ShopRite (900 Madison Street) collecting donations for the Hoboken Shelter, and they will follow that up with another food drive at Acme (614 Clinton Street) the next day. Both events will run from 5-7PM.
The Hoboken Girl Scouts and volunteers from Stevens Institute will be handing out 800 reusable bags to those who donate at the event, which is looking to collect everything from coffee, cereals and juices to frozen meat and instant potatoes. A full list of items desired can be found here.
The Hoboken Shelter itself is also looking for volunteers to help around the busy holiday season. Interested parties can call the shelter at 201-656-5069 and sign up to lend a hand any day of the week to help serve dinner from 6PM-8PM. All holiday volunteers will need to bring donations of plates, cups, napkins, plastic utensils, coffee, sugar or milk.
