six turkey spots

no, this is not a hunting guide…

…which is obvious to anybody who knows me, since i don’t hunt. no, this is a backstory of my turkey day life. this year we’re doing it here, at our place, which is the house i’ve lived in since september of 1978. to my recollection (and most of my friends will attest my memory is pretty fucking good) we’ve never done turkey day here. ever. so this will be new. xmas is ALWAYS here, or at least has been since my grandmother went into a home in the late 1990’s. but turkey day? nope. hell, for the longest time it was at…

grandma’s place – this was the main spot…be it the cool place in travis heights or the little spot in lockhart that later paid for mr. gray (my bmw). this was for as long as i can remember until about 1999 when she went into a home. we had a brief reprise in 2002 when somebody (uncle arturo) was feeling sentimental and had it at his now deceased mother’s place. too much food, too many leftovers, and it was late as fuck because he didn’t realize a “pre-cooked” turkey still took a couple hours to heat up. that sucked. plenty of fond memories on this, save for having to wait for uncle arturo, but grandma always blamed aunt david (nobody calls him that but me) because he’s latino, and his people are “never in that much of a hurry”. anybody miss the generation forgiven for racism just because of when they grew up?

threadgill’s – i really wish we’d done katz’s, but we never did. the downside to threadgill’s is they DON’T take reservations, so the wait is usually over an hour. i used this to my advantage, getting there an hour ahead of our meet up time, getting on the list, and drinking enough to make family time charming and fun. this was interspersed with…

hoover’s – i had forgotten about this place till my buddy mike pain mentioned he was getting his turkey from there this year. the food was pretty good, the wait okay, and i remember them throwing fruit salad into the mix which was an interesting call. we did this one a few times, and i think my grandmother even joined once or twice before she passed. i can’t remember why we changed from here, i think we just slowly migrated more south, which is why we ended up at threadill’s and later…

the black eyed pea – as in the chain restaurant. i had never been to one, and honestly i’m not quite sure how my uncle stumbled on this place and came up with the plan but the food was good, the service was quick, and the wait was non-existent. so, of course, the place had to close. they’re still around in other parts of texas but not austin. on the upside a plucker’s went in it’s place, and i they have a full bar and better food…but no thanksgiving stuff. this gave way to…

hill’s cafe – i was a big fan of the location here, but things slowly deteriorated. i’ve bitched about this before. the reference bit, saying we were done with the place, came out in 2014. we gave them one more chance. we learned our lesson, and this year…

casa mccauley – do it away from the house you need to remain sober enough to drive home. but do it AT the house? and…