Thanksgiving.
The Silo Cookhouse is the ideal venue for something like a Thanksgiving meal.
We are way ahead of the game, because we already understand the value of communal dining, how eating a meal with people that we love and care about is a long-lost, yet age-old ritual of gathering.
This year, we decided to do seating times instead of one, timed event. This was of course (as a business…) for fiscal reasons… but we were also hoping that it would give more people the chance to share their Thanksgiving meal with us. And man, it worked!
With the stunning new bar installed, The Silo Kitchen “Creative-Culinary-Team” hitting a stride the likes of which this restaurant has never seen, flowers arranged, s’mores stacked neatly outside, yard games on the lawn, football blaring in The Farmhouse Game Room, a gorgeous 71º day, all of the magic was in the air.
Thanksgiving 2023 was a family affair. Both, due to the many families that chose to spend their holiday with us, and also our THSF Family that mind-melds on the daily to execute experiences that are just something special.
I am going to selfishly talk about the food for just a moment. It’s unreal. I watched our Pastry Chef, Kyle McAlee, hand roll a zillion rolls at the crack of dawn on Thanksgiving Day because the thought of ANYTHING less than utter perfection is unfathomable to him. Chef’s Dan, Tory, Dan 2.0, and the team of dishwashers, front of house staff, the honorable Sir David “Attenborough” Nitchman, Tina and Mike OWNING the bar space… do not know the phrase “half-hearted.”
There is a platitude about the best food being cooked with love, or whatever.. (I don’t cook, and no, I don’t want to learn) that just R I N G S true when you eat the food here. The Chef’s will tell you that it’s because the product comes from local growers & farmers who ALSO ascribe to the standards found here at THSF, and that’s likely part of it… but I suspect it’s something else, too.
Being a non-cook, I have eaten a great deal of other people’s cooking. And I do mean, a great deal. I enjoy cuisine from the finest Waffle House in middle Georgia or my home base pub, Hannah Flanagan’s, all the way up to Peter Luger’s, Boulud Sud, Jack’s Wife Freda, Bubby’s, The Smoking Goat, The Ivy, Jeni’s, and so many more… THIS PLACE is just different. They all are, but this place has my food-soul, hook-line-&-sinker.
For the past couple of years at Thanksgiving, (lunch? dinner? supper? lundinner?) we have left papers out on the tables for guests to write down something, big or small, that they’re grateful for. As someone who has ebbed and flowed through periods of life where "being asked what I was “grateful for” would have sent me into a blind rage, I like to keep the papers relatively low impact. There is no interaction required for this paper. It’s a voluntary way for people to share a good thing in their life. We need more of that, you know. More sharing, more good things, more acknowledgment that we are not as isolated as it can seem like.
Nobody is going to ask you to say something you are grateful for, if you would rather have sunscreen applied with sandpaper than be grateful. The papers are intentional, and THIS YEAR… so were the responses.
Anyway, all of those things were said to say this:
Whatever is going on here, I am
THANKFUL to play a part in it.
What a gift it is, to work with a community of people who have found their passions.
