Local Bartender To Cook Thanksgiving Dinner For Regulars

BAY SHORE, NY - This Thanksgiving, while most people will be enjoying dinner with their families, there are some spending the holiday alone.

However, one Bay Shore bartender is making sure her regular customers won't have to.

Jill Schombs, who works at Penny Pub at 79 W. Main Street, volunteered to cook dinner on Thursday for about 20 to 30 of the local bar's loyal customers after hearing they didn't have anywhere else to go.

"I have one regular who has Stage 3 cancer and he was going to be sitting home," she told GreaterBayShore. "And I just couldn’t bring myself to picture him alone."

The bar is normally closed on the holiday, but Schombs asked co-owner Mike McElwee if they could stay open for a few hours. He agreed to open the bar starting at 3 p.m.

"Regulars have their own seats," McElwee told ABC7. "If they walk in that back door, their drink is ready before they even get to the bar. Because it's 'everybody knows your name.'"

Despite having her own family to spend time with on Thanksgiving, Schombs will be cooking two turkeys and five turkey breasts with the help of a regular customer, ABC7 reports.

“My family eats later anyway,” she told GreaterBayShore.

After volunteering to cook, word spread quickly and Schombs told ABC7 that she's already gotten so many responses for the dinner.

"So many people want to drop off trays of food and pies and everything," she told ABC7.

Photo: Facebook.com/The Penny Pub