Oakdale Bar Owners Extend Their Family With Thanksgiving Meal for Those in Need

Oakdale owner Jim Yanz and his wife Jodi used to have a typical Thanksgiving celebration each year, in a home with their extended family.

But in the eight years since they started opening their restaurant to give a free Thanksgiving meal to anyone in need—either of food, or just of someone to spend the day with—those who attend have become family, too, Jim Yanz said.

“They dress up very nice and they come in and say, ‘hi,’ and we’re on a first-name basis,” Jim Yanz said. “They ask about our family we ask about their family.”

The couple, their children and their extended family all gather at the restaurant Thursday morning to prepare a traditional Thanksgiving meal, which they serve from noon to 2:30 p.m., Jim Yanz said.

“Everybody bends over backwards to help out,” he said.

Even their kids, ages 5, 7 and 8 and their cousins help out, Jodi Yanz said.
“I think it’s good for our kids to see us helping people,” she said, “and they also get to help people—kind of just teaching the kids to give back.”

Serving the meal has become the highlight of the family’s holiday season, Jim Yanz said.

“It really does more for us than it does for the people we’re serving food to,” he said. “Everybody looks forward to it.”

About 100 people typically show up, he said, and many of the same people come year-after year, he said.

Sometimes their stories give him a lump in his throat, he said, like the story of an older woman who lost both her husband and her son within the three weeks leading up to Thanksgiving.

“That was obviously an emotional story and situation,” he said, “but at the same time she was just so elated to be here visiting with the people.”

The restaurant’s supplier, Reinhart Food Service, donates food for the event, and Byerly’s grocery store in St. Paul donates pies, Jodi Yanz said.

The Bierstube restaurants in Inver Grove Heights and White Bear Lake also serve a similar Thanksgiving meal, and the Hastings Bierstube provides food to a church, he said.

“The Bierstubes are hanging in there … even in this economy,” Jim Yanz said. “We’re doing the best we can to survive and thrive and we just want to give back to the community.”