The Coffee Pot Restaurant will hold its 15th annual free community Thanksgiving dinner on Wednesday, Nov. 27, from 4 to 7 p.m., with donations taken to benefit the Sedona Community Food Bank. 

“It’s a communal-style seating event, and our staff all works it free of charge, and sometimes other family members of theirs come in to pitch a hand, to lend a hand as well,” said Damien Daher, one of the sons of owner Emilie Daher. “It’s just a good time, something we love doing.” 

The Daher family started the tradition in response to the Great Recession of 2008 to offer a meal and a warm and welcoming place to those in need or those who had no one with whom to spend Thanksgiving. The dinner has since grown into an event open to everyone from everywhere. 

The event features a traditional meal with turkey, gravy, stuffing, vegetables, mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce followed by pumpkin pie. Complimentary non-alcoholic beverages will be offered as well. Damien Daher said the event usually attracts between 400 and 600 attendees and raises between $4,000 and $5,000 for the food bank, up from $400 at the first event in 2011. 

“It’s something that we plan for weeks ahead of time in terms of ordering all the different traditional foods and that the kitchen starts preparing for in the days leading up to it,” Daher said. “We’ll probably close a bit early that day to give our kitchen staff extra time. We redo the seating in the restaurant, too. We get rid of all the tables for two so that everybody is together in bigger groups. And we do outreach … it’s just a big concerted event to try and throw up as much excitement as we can for this dinner and the community.” 

The Coffee Pot can accommodate dietary restrictions within the available menu and hot sauce is available on request. 

Leftover ingredients also get donated to the food bank and leftovers from the prepared meal go home with the Coffee Pot staffers. 

“It’s just a small way that we can give back to the community,” Daher said. “We give back in other ways as well, but this is something that we’ve done for all these years now. We appreciate our people here in Sedona. We appreciate the regulars, the people that have part-time homes here, the tourists who visit us regularly. It’s a broad mixture of individuals that we get in here, and so we wanted to show our gratitude for all of them. And also for the less fortunate and maybe aren’t able to afford to dine in here … so we can provide something for them as well.”