The 100-Year-Old Alabama Restaurant That Serves Thanksgiving Classics Year-Round
There's something special in the air during the holiday season, jostling everyone out of their post-Halloween candy comas. It wafts through the house, motivating a flurry of activity like hanging decorations, trimming trees, and prepping for guests. That mysterious holiday magic stirs up a cozy feeling of familiarity and connectedness, and it can be distilled into just a few words: turkey dinner.
The smell of Thanksgiving is a perfectly roasted turkey, surrounded by fixings like garlic mashed potatoes, homemade gravy, cranberry sauce, and green beans wrapped in caramelized bacon. The list of Thanksgiving sides could go on and on depending on family traditions and culture, but a turkey is often the centerpiece of the holiday. We wait all year for it and prepare the bird for days before the grand event. Making a classic Thanksgiving dinner takes work, but sitting down to that annual turkey feast makes it all worthwhile.
An Alabama restaurant has been taking the work out of Thanksgiving dinner for more than 100 years, however, and you can get a turkey with all the trimmings there year-round. Bates House of Turkey is a farm-to-table eatery that sources its poultry from its nearby free-range turkey farm. From turkey dinners and sandwiches to turkey chili, turkey lasagna, and even turkey sausage, Bates House of Turkey has a huge selection of turkey-based cuisine. At this family-owned restaurant, you can get holiday fixings any time of the year.
It's Thanksgiving all year at Bates House of Turkey
You can sit down to Thanksgiving dinner seven days a week at Bates House of Turkey and with the restaurant's large menu, there's trimmings for every taste. On the menu is every kind of turkey imaginable, roasted or hickory-smoked, sliced or whole, frozen or fully cooked. You can order turkey gumbo, turkey noodle soup, turkey tetrazzini, and turkey pot pie. Classic sides at Bates House of Turkey include homemade cornbread dressing, cranberry dishes, coleslaw, potato salad, and pasta salad.
When it comes to hosting holiday dinners, Bates House of Turkey is ready to take on all the hard work. The restaurant's two locations in Greenville and Montgomery offer catering year-round and special holiday catering that can even include ham for those who don't love their trademark turkey. Prices vary depending on the order, but a Thanksgiving dinner for 12-14 people costs about $200, per the restaurant's website. So, you could put in the effort to perfectly brine your own turkey and prepare fixings for dinner, or you could put in a call to Bates House of Turkey and have it arrive at your door, dressed to impress.
The Bates family has raised turkeys for over 100 years
Bates House of Turkey is a farm-to-table operation made up of a central farm and two restaurants in Alabama specializing in turkey — and happy turkeys at that. The poultry served at the restaurants has been raised at Bates Turkey Farm outside of Fort Deposit since 1923. In a single year, around 50,000 turkeys are raised, processed, and sold from the farm. Since the family opened it, the turkeys have been free roaming, living among pecan trees that are scattered around the Bates Turkey Farm.
The Bates family started in the turkey business during the Great Depression (via the Alabama News Center). Helen and W.C. Bates received nine turkey eggs as a wedding gift in 1923. Times were lean and the couple decided to use the baby turkeys as a nest egg for their future. They grew the flock as they could afford it and sold the turkeys for profit. As the farm grew, the Bates decided to open the first restaurant just up the road from the farm, opening the doors of Bates House of Turkey in 1969. Since then, generations of the Bates Family have dedicated themselves to turkey and the restaurant has become a popular destination for travelers from everywhere. The restaurant was even able to keep its doors open through the COVID-19 pandemic, though a dip in patrons did impact sales for a while. Bates House of Turkey's second location opened in Montgomery, Alabama, in 2023 and has become a popular lunch spot in the area.