How a turkey sandwich became a Thanksgiving tradition
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
Baby Steve "Sheep" Riley with a turkey and grownup Sheep with a turkey. Photo: Courtesy of Steve Riley
It started 14 years ago with a simple turkey sandwich. That sandwich blossomed into an annual tradition where Steve "Sheep" Riley cooks hundreds of Thanksgiving meals to go.
The big picture: Riley's deli Big Front Door sells smoked turkey dinners that you can pick up and reheat at home, skipping the entire cooking process. People have come to rely on his cooking and keep coming back every year.
Flashback: BFD opened in 2012 and specialized in roasting and smoking meat.
- They sold an open-faced turkey sandwich with mashed potatoes and gravy, and a customer asked if Riley could cook him a Thanksgiving meal.
- Riley hung up a sign offering the meals and got about 50 orders.
- "Everybody came back," Riley told Axios. "It turned into a thing."
Behind the scenes: The ready-to-go meals took off, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, when more than 350 orders came in. That was kind of a nightmare, Riley said.
- "We thought, 'What did we do?' I had put the orders online, and we would go to sleep and wake up [the] next morning with 50 more meals ordered overnight," Riley said. "We just wanted to take care of everybody, but we took on more than we should have and powered through it."
- Now, they cap the orders at 150.
How it works: About two weeks out from Thanksgiving, Riley puts in a loose order for turkeys, usually 100 to 150 pounds, plus potatoes, green beans and everything else he needs.
- It takes two full days to smoke all the turkeys.
- "Simultaneously, we're working on all the other prep that's going into potatoes, green beans, stuffing," he said.
By the numbers: They have six burners, two ovens and a smoker running nonstop.
- Prep wraps up with a 15-gallon batch of gravy.
- Riley and his wife do most of the cooking, with help from four of his 12 employees.
Many of the customers have been ordering for at least five if not 10 years.
- "So I know almost everybody that I'm cooking for now," Riley said.
Aww moment: Riley said it's an honor to be welcomed into households year after year.
- "You can only hope to latch on to the community with something like that," he said. "I hoped my business would be the type of place where you're taking care of people for years."
Friction point: Riley still really likes Thanksgiving. His wife, not so much.
- "So we got the yin and yang going on," he said.
Fun fact: Riley's favorite dish is the green bean casserole.
💠Claire's thought bubble: My husband and I are among those customers. I think we've ordered every year except the first. On our 10th anniversary, Riley gave us a bottle of wine.
- I don't mind cooking other things, but I am eternally grateful that he has spared me from ever having to cook a full Thanksgiving dinner.