Canton's trendy Austin Grill, known for serving salsa and tequila to the city's well-heeled young urban professionals, transformed itself yesterday into a homey Thanksgiving gathering spot for hundreds of down-on-their-luck veterans.
The Southwestern-themed restaurant near the waterfront joined dozens of churches and charities across Baltimore that played holiday host to the needy, including the memorial Bea Gaddy annual dinner that feeds thousands every year.
The crowd at Austin Grill was much smaller, but it might have been the only one in town to get its turkey and mashed potatoes served on heavy china restaurant plates instead of paper ones.
Make that garlic mashed potatoes, accompanied by a medley of steamed zucchini and yellow squash, followed by thick, layered chocolate truffle cake. This was Thanksgiving on Baltimore's Gold Coast, after all, where canned corn just doesn't cut it.
"They told us we were in for a good meal, and the camaraderie of fellow veterans," said Donald Coleman, 49, who served in the Navy in the early 1970s and now is part of a Department of Veterans Affairs program that helps homeless veterans. "We're just planning on having a good time."
Most of the 400 veterans fed yesterday at Austin Grill are fighting drug and alcohol addictions or mental illness, working with VA programs in Maryland to find their way back into jobs and families and homes.
Without the program or the companionship of other former military workers, many said, they were unsure what Thanksgiving would have held for them.
"They're helping me to get it back together," said John Dalecki, 51, a Delaware native who served in the Navy and who is fighting alcoholism. "Without this program, a lot of guys just might not make it at all. They'd end up dying in the streets."
Organizers from the VA and Austin Grill said they tried to make yesterday's meal a time for the men to set aside their troubles and enjoy the holiday. Restaurant manager Alex Frankian, who oversaw a roomful of volunteer cooks and servers, said the dinner was a way to give back to the community.
Dale E. Smith, who manages the VA's residential care program, said volunteers planned to distribute donated winter coats and toiletries.
But the primary concern, Smith said, "really is to feed them - we really just want them to have a good meal."
To the veterans, it was a good meal with an extended family of sorts.
"My sisters called yesterday from Washington, D.C., and asked if I was going to be home," Coleman said. "I said, 'No.' But this makes up for it. This is like family. The veterans are all one big family."
This was second year for the veterans meal at Austin Grill. Organizers this year included the city's Department of Homeless Services, which helped steer other needy residents to the dinner, and officials said they expected to roughly double the 240 meals served last year.
By that measure, no one in town competes with Bea Gaddy's Thanksgiving meal at Paul Laurence Dunbar Middle School.
Yesterday's dinner, the second since its founder died of breast cancer last year, was no different than it has been for two decades - with scores of volunteers and thousands of hungry people.
The Bea Gaddy dinner yesterday got a shot of star power from Baltimore-born R&B; singer Sisqo.
The entertainer had donated 1,500 turkeys to the meal and made a brief appearance that included an impromptu performance with other members of his group, Dru Hill, before he climbed into the driver's seat of a gray Hummer outside, carrying a plate piled with turkey, potatoes and cranberries.
"Man, it's just kind of funny," Sisqo said as curious fans crowded around his well-appointed sport utility vehicle and waved at him. "Coming up in Baltimore, and being as young as I am, I always wanted to help out. But I never thought I'd be the one they'd turn to."
Sisqo turned to his plate, though, with a somewhat perplexed look.
The only utensil he had received was a long plastic spoon. In a testament to the yearly Bea Gaddy crowds, the servers had run out of forks.