His Gratitude Shows

Why, Andreas Psaras is asked, on a day you could be home watching football or taking a nap or reading the paper, do you show up at your restaurant at 5:30 a.m. and serve free Thanksgiving meals to maybe 1,000 people?

Thirty-nine-year-old Psaras, who has left the crowded kitchen for a few minutes to walk outside and smoke a cigarette, doesn’t hesitate with an answer.

“By working every day I can make a good living, fill up my wallet,” he said, his Greek accent still heavy from a youth spent in Cyprus. “But on Thanksgiving, I fill up my heart, my soul. I show my love for my neighborhood. Everything I have I owe to my customers--my house, my car, my wife, my kids.”

For the past several weeks, a sign outside Harry’s Place Cafe in Stanton read, “Free Turkey Dinner on Thanksgiving Day to All Those in Need.”

The definition of “need” was stretched a bit. It really meant anyone. The restaurant was filled with the poor, the lonely and the regulars who lined up for turkey, salad, rice, mashed potato and yams.

“It rocks,” said a 44-year-old homeless man named Lee, whose wrinkled face added a decade to his appearance. He had worked up an appetite panhandling earlier in the day at a nearby carwash. If you’re begging, Thanksgiving is the day your stock doubles. “I got me a big old meal and a meal to go,” he bragged, thinking of his dinner feast.

Anthony Fields, 46, figured that since he eats at Harry’s most days, why not on Thanksgiving? “You can’t beat the prices, and the food’s excellent,” the handyman said between bites of his turkey.

This was the third year Psaras has served free Thanksgiving meals at his cafe. His wife, Angela, was there helping and his daughter, Angelena, 10, and son, Kyriakos, 5, pitched in by cleaning.

Paul Bonias, who supplies the restaurant with produce, was helping out after donating 500 pound of yams.

“We came to this country with one suitcase, all of us,” said Nick Nicola, 53, who hails from Eptakomi, the same Cypriot village as Psaras. “They call it Thanksgiving. It’s not just for eating. You have to do something for people.”

It wasn’t just Psaras’ friends who were helping out. Ernie Thomsen, 79, often stops by for breakfast. This day, though, he was passing food out. He pushed aside his long red apron and pulled from his pocket a list of the shut-ins at nearby Park Place Senior Apartments he had promised to bring meals from Harry’s.

Linda Brooks’ husband is the manager of a company down the street, and he eats lunch there every day. “I believe it’s what God wants you to do,” she said while clearing tables. “To feed the homeless. To feed the hungry. Give back something.”

The first year he gave away the free meals, Psaras served 200 to 300 people. Last year it was 500 to 700. This year he hoped to serve 1,000. He figured the day might cost him $2,000, but he wasn’t paying much attention to the costs.

At midday, Angela worried that they might have leftovers. Maybe the signs outside and the 30,000 fliers they sent out weren’t enough publicity. Next year, she said, they would have to do better.

By that time, Psaras will have opened another, bigger restaurant on nearby Katella Avenue. Someday, he says, he wants to feed 5,000 people on Thanksgiving.

Psaras came to the U.S. in 1984, following his older brother by three years. “He said if you’re honest and hard-working, you can succeed,” Psaras recalled. “Everything he said was right.”