Sisters put on feast for 2 towns Restaurant owners open doors to Winterport, Frankfort residents

WINTERPORT – Coming from a big family, sisters Rose DeGennaro and Millie Brown are used to cooking for a crowd, but even they never figured on whipping up turkey dinner for a couple of towns.

The owners of Sisters Restaurant and a bunch of their friends spent the days and hours leading up to Thanksgiving preparing a holiday feast for anyone in Winterport and Frankfort looking for a good home-cooked meal and warm surroundings.

“Actually, we’ll feed anyone who walks in the door,” DeGennaro said while stirring up a pot of stuffing early Thursday. “It doesn’t matter where they’re from, we’ll feed them until we run out of food.”

DeGennaro credited Mike Allen, owner of Winterport Boot Shop, for the idea and for kicking in the cash to make the meal happen. She said Allen approached her and Brown with the idea about six months ago and they immediately agreed to give it a whirl.

A regular dynamo in and out of the kitchen, DeGennaro said the sisters had been host to their own extended family at the restaurant last Thanksgiving and that this year’s meal would just be a bigger version.

“I come from such a big family that I can’t imagine what it would be like to stay home alone on a holiday,” said DeGennaro. “I love people, I love to talk and I love a crowd. It just puts me in my element. I love old people, I love babies,” adding with a laugh, “teen-agers, eech…”

Ironically, this was the first Thanksgiving that DeGennaro’s two teen-age children would be away from the family table. Son Peter, 19, was in California visiting a friend and daughter Kayla, 13, was in New Jersey to be with her grandfather on his 80th birthday.

To put on the meal, the sisters roasted 10 turkeys, mashed about 100 pounds of potatoes, cooked buckets of peas, crocks of stuffing and gallons of gravy. Marsha’s Homemade Pickles donated a couple of cases of their finest, the cooks at the Wagner School baked a huge batch of rolls and people have been calling for days offering their help and donations.

The meal was served family-style with platters of turkey and bowls of vegetables covering the restaurant’s tables.

“I can’t believe the phone calls, people wanting to help, others wanting to come by. One lady, she’s lived in town for more than 60 years, told me she never heard of such a thing. Offering to feed anyone in town that wanted a meal,” said DeGennaro. “It’s hard to realize that a lot of people are alone, especially this time of year.”

DeGennaro arranged to pick up people who couldn’t get a ride to the Route 1 restaurant and planned to deliver meals to those who were unable to leave home. She said she was overwhelmed with the outpouring of support and the local reaction to the dinner.

“People are just so proud of the fact that somebody is doing something like this, especially this year,” she said. “People have pulled together so much this year. People used to take care of their neighbors and it feels kind of nice going back to that way of life.”

The sisters opened their restaurant a year ago and it’s been an immediate hit. DeGennaro said they learned their style of home cooking growing up as “outbackers” in a family of six. In Winterport, anyone who lives a few miles off of Route 1 is considered an “outbacker,” she said. She proudly placed Mike Allen in that category.

Sisters Restaurant initially was open from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. daily for breakfast and lunch. The sisters recently expanded their Friday and Saturday hours to 7 p.m., with a special fish fry on Friday and prime rib dinner on Saturday.

Widowed last year, DeGennaro reflected that she has felt a new mood of community and caring since the tragedy of Sept. 11. She expressed hope that people will continue to reach out to one another and be thankful for their lives and their families.

“It’s always a tragedy that gets people together. It’s the same with families. It’s tragedy in a family that brings them together after they are spread all over the place,” said DeGennaro. “The way everyone has pulled together for this has really been a dream. The only recurring nightmare I have is that it’s just me here with all the cleaning and everyone else has gone home.”