Old Country Store spent a good part of this week preparing for its holiday tradition of serving breakfast on Christmas Eve.
Jonathan Jenkins is the kitchen manager for the restaurant, and he and general manager Brooks Shaw, spent some time going over the logistics of the morning.
Staff members will start showing up at 3:30 a.m. on Saturday to begin early preparations with more staff showing up at 4 and 5 a.m. with the final bit of servers coming in at 8 a.m.
The amount of food they plan to swerve dwarfs a normal breakfast rush for any of the other Saturday mornings of the year.
“We’re ordering a total of 200 cases of food for this one meal,” Shaw said.
While neither Shaw nor Jenkins had a number of how many cases of food the restaurant serves on a normal Saturday, Jenkins could compare one specific item on the menu.
“We’re ordering 15 cases of biscuits,” said Jenkins, who’s been with the Old Country Store for 23 years. “On a typical Saturday, we usually bake maybe two or three cases.”
The total statistics for the amount of food ordered for the holiday is large: 50 pounds of grits (before they’re cooked), 180 pounds of pancake mix, 12 gallons of syrup, 200 pounds of grapes, 240 pounds of country ham, 182 pounds of bologna, 2,592 biscuits, 2,250 sausage links, 1,920 sausage patties and 200 pounds of city ham.
According to a prior press release from the restaurant, there have been as many as 300 people waiting in line when the restaurant opened at 5:30 a.m. with a steady crowd of people filing through and getting a holiday breakfast until 2 p.m.
The plan is to have different things for children to do while they wait including coloring books and train tables. Santa Claus is set to be in the building from 8 a.m. until noon and may get some food on the way out to fuel up before his annual all-night ride around the world.
“It’s the busiest day of the year, but it’s a fun time for us,” Jenkins said. “We have everybody just about working here together, so it’s kind of like we’re getting our family together for the holiday just like everybody else.”
The breakfast features discounted prices with the buffet being $5.99 for adults and $3.99 with those prices including a hot drink. Any other additional drinks will be $2.79 each.
Brandon Shields, brandon@jacksonpost.news
What happened to HOMEMADE biscuits? Even Jack’s makes their biscuits from scratch!