San Pedro Eatery to Dish Out Holiday Cheer

When the West Channel Bar & Grill opens this morning, its 65 employees will be working, but most won’t be paid. They also won’t be taking any reservations. And the San Pedro restaurant’s menu--one that includes dishes like abalone chowder and grilled lamb sausage and spicy yellowtail--will be ignored.

Chef Katsuo Nagasawa is trying his hand at Thanksgiving Day dinner--for 1,000 of the South Bay’s hungry and homeless.

The event, which caps 10 months of planning by the restaurant and Harbor Interfaith Shelter, is one of several planned today by a variety of South Bay agencies. By the time the last table has been cleared and all the dishes have been put away, more than 2,000 free meals will have been served to the area’s needy.

The idea for the restaurant event was born in February, five months before West Channel’s actual opening, when its owners and manager met with representatives of Harbor Interfaith to talk about a fund-raiser for the shelter. As that notion was discussed, West Channel’s manager, Anthony Miller, proposed something different.

“I said, ‘Maybe we could serve a thousand meals on Thanksgiving.’ And from that moment on, everybody agreed that was the way to go,” Miller said.

West Channel’s owners, Ed and Carol Miller, agreed to supply the food and staff for the event. Harbor Interfaith set out to organize local churches, temples, service organizations and shelters. The first stop was The Crossing, a San Pedro ministry and soup kitchen that has traditionally served special meals on the holidays.

“We contacted the people at The Crossing first because we wanted to make sure our idea wouldn’t interfere with their plans. And they said, ‘Go ahead. We’ll help,’ ” said Ruth Lohrer, a Harbor Interfaith volunteer and planning coordinator for today’s event.

With that, monthly meetings began between the restaurant and Harbor Interfaith officials to collect food, locate volunteers and solicit donations of tableware and other items.

By and large, the collection of food--more than 900 pounds of turkey, 1,000 cartons of milk, enough crust and filling for 150 pumpkin pies--was left to West Channel’s manager. “We’ve had a lot of companies and suppliers donating items. We’re picking up the tab for the rest,” said Anthony Miller, who is no relation to the restaurant’s owners.

Likewise, it was left to the restaurant to coordinate the staff for preparing and serving in one day as many meals as it might serve on a busy weekend. “Everyone here is donating their time except for the ones who bus tables and help out in the kitchen. I can’t ask people who are making $4.25 an hour to donate their time,” Miller said.

In addition to the restaurant’s cooks, servers and managers, Harbor Interfaith has located more than 200 volunteers from about 20 area congregations and service groups. The volunteers, according to Harbor Interfaith’s Lohrer, assisted in preparing decorations, arranging tables, providing entertainment and coordinating transportation to and from the restaurant by two buses donated for the day. “We really didn’t think we would have any problem getting volunteers, but we’ve been amazed how many people have offered help. We’ve had to turn many of them away,” Lohrer said.

Unfortunately, Lohrer added, the same was true for several hundred needy families and individuals.

“We ran out of tickets days ago,” she said.

Though originally concerned that some of the 1,000 tickets to today’s event might go wanting, Lohrer said, the 15 agencies distributing tickets found that their allocations lasted only a few days.

“We thought there might be a problem getting that many people to attend, that we might be providing more meals than there were people,” said Lohrer. “But what we found is that the need is so much greater than we expected. It has just been enormous.”

While that event is closed, numerous other public and private agencies have provided--or will provide--food for Thanksgiving Day meals. In Carson, for example, about 200 turkeys donated to the city were distributed Wednesday to needy families.

Holiday meals also are planned elsewhere in the South Bay:

* In Lawndale, the House of Yahweh, 4430 W. 147th St., will serve about 200 meals from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. “As long as we have food, we’ll feed ‘em,” said the agency’s executive director, Sister Michele Morris. Much of the food for the event, she said, was provided by South Bay chapters of the Boy Scouts. In addition, the soup kitchen will distribute notion bags of soap, shaving cream and other toiletries donated by local stores and service organizations.

* In Hermosa Beach, an estimated 400 to 500 meals will be served from noon to 4 p.m. at the seventh annual “Mama Liz” Thanksgiving Day dinner and concert. The event, sponsored by the Easy Reader, will be held at the Hermosa Kiwanis Hall, 2525 Valley Drive. “We don’t know how many to expect this year, but we’ve been running 400 to 500 meals in the last few years,” said the paper’s Coralie Ebey. The event is named after Liz Turner, a typesetter at the paper, who, with Ebey, started the Thanksgiving Day program.

* In Torrance, the Salvation Army will provide at least 300 meals from noon to 2 p.m. at its center, 4223 Emerald St. “We welcome anyone,” said Lt. Kenneth Hodder, commander of the Salvation Army’s Torrance center. “This is not just for the needy in our community but for those who would be alone or have less than they should on the holiday.” In addition to the Thanksgiving Day meals, he said, those attending the event will receive at least one bag of canned food donated by local Boy Scouts. And beginning the day after Thanksgiving, Hodder said, the Salvation Army center will sponsor a weekly soup kitchen on Fridays from 7 to 8 p.m., at Alondra Park in Lawndale.

“The needs don’t end after the holiday,” said Hodder, who expects the soup kitchen to provide enough meals for several hundred hungry or homeless people each week.