Local grocers offer help for the holiday

link Staff photo: Joshua Lucero

Super Save deli manager Lamario Miles removes a baked turkey from the store’s bakery oven Thursday afternoon. Grocery stores in Portales and Clovis have prepared Thanksgiving meals to ease the holiday stress for area residents.

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With Thanksgiving days away, local grocers are looking to help out those who don’t have the time to spend preparing a full Thanksgiving meal.

Tim Russell, owner of Russell’s Super Save Discount Foods in Portales, said he has been selling complete Thanksgiving meals for more than 10 years, and delivering them to residents who could not prepare them.

“People prefer to have a cooked meal. It’s worked out well for us and them,” Russell said of the Thanksgiving dinners the store sells at its deli.

Super Save Deli manager Lemario Miles said he doesn’t mind cooking the meals during the days leading up to Thanksgiving.

“It makes it easier on people and we do it for them,” Miles said. “It takes the stress off people.”

He said the meals serve eight to 10 people and include the traditional Thanksgiving dishes such as turkey, dressing, rolls, and even a pumpkin pie.

According to Miles, the store sold more than 40 dinners for Thanksgiving 2013, and expects to sell more this year.

Miles said the meals are precooked and can be heated up at the store or by the customer at home.

Albertsons grocery store in Clovis is helping out residents with four choices of Thanksgiving dinners.

Albertsons deli worker Breanna Spigner said the store expects to sell more than 100 dinners during Thanksgiving week this year.

She said the store has been selling precooked Thanksgiving meals for more than six yeas in Clovis.

“Most people don’t have the time to cook,” Spigner said. “It’s easier for them to come in and order something.”

Spigner said the store sells Thanksgiving dinner options that feed six to 10 people and include turkey, ham, dressing, pie and bread. She said customers have to sign up for the dinners in advance at the store and must pick them up before close on Wednesday.

Paradise Market in Clovis is also helping out customers who don’t have the time or the patience to cook a Thanksgiving meal.

Owner Bill Bargman said his store has been preparing Thanksgiving meals to sell since they opened three years ago. He said they started making the meals because they have a full kitchen available to them.

“It (Thanksgiving meal sales) have been growing every year. We’re pretty fortunate,” Bargman said.

Bargman declined to reveal the number of Thanksgiving meals sold last year, but said the store has doubled that number already as of Monday afternoon.

“The customer response has been great. We’re real pleased with the input we’ve received,” he said.