Lucille's is better placed for Thanksgiving than most barbecue chains, and the reason is structural: it already runs wood-burning smokers overnight in every restaurant and it already sells whole-meal feasts for ten to twelve people. A smoked turkey holiday package is not a stretch for this kitchen — it is the Super Feast with a different bird in it.
Lucille's Smokehouse Bar-B-Que prices at a glance
The prices referenced on this page, collected up front. They vary by location and change without notice.
| Package | Price | Feeds | Per head |
|---|---|---|---|
| Backyard Family Feast | $124.99 | 5–6 | ~$20.83 |
| Lucille's Super Feast | $244.99 | 10–12 | ~$20.42 |
What Lucille's offers at Thanksgiving
The chain typically runs a holiday to-go package built around a whole smoked turkey with Southern sides, alongside a limited holiday menu in the dining room on the day itself. The exact package name, contents and price change year to year and are set close to the season, so treat any figure you read in advance — including here — as a guide and confirm with your restaurant when ordering opens, usually in late October or early November.
What does not change is the shape of it. Lucille's sells food by the table, and its two standing feasts tell you roughly where a holiday package will land:
Expect a holiday package to land in the same territory, around twenty dollars a head. That is not cheap against cooking at home; you are buying a bird someone else smoked overnight and sides you do not have to make.
The ordering deadline is the whole game
This is the part that catches people. Restaurants take a finite number of holiday orders because smoker capacity is finite, and Lucille's runs roughly 25 restaurants each with its own pit schedule. Orders close when the pits are full, not on a marketing date.
- Late October / early November: holiday packages typically go on sale. This is when to order.
- Mid-November: popular pickup slots start disappearing at busy locations.
- The week of Thanksgiving: assume it is too late for a whole turkey. Call anyway, but have a plan B.
- Pickup: usually Thanksgiving Day morning or Thanksgiving Eve, with a fixed collection window you choose at order time.
Book the earliest pickup slot you can tolerate. A 10am collection on Thanksgiving Day means a quiet parking lot; a 1pm collection means the same queue as everyone else who left it late.
Thanksgiving Day hours
Lucille's normally trades on Thanksgiving, often on shortened hours against the usual 11:00 to 21:00 weekday pattern, with a holiday menu running alongside part of the regular one. Individual restaurants set their own schedule, and mall locations follow the center. If you are planning to eat in rather than collect, reserve — Thanksgiving is one of the three busiest table-service days of the year, and this chain is a table-service restaurant with 4.4 stars across roughly 26,800 reviews. General timing patterns are on the Lucille's hours page.
Reheating a smoked turkey
Holiday packages come cooked and chilled, so the meal is a reheat, not a cook. Get this wrong and you will dry out a bird someone spent a night smoking.
- Whole turkey: 325°F, covered in foil with a splash of stock in the pan, roughly 12–15 minutes per pound until the breast reads 165°F. Uncover for the last ten minutes if you want the skin back.
- Sliced turkey: foil, a little stock, 300°F, 20 minutes. Never microwave it.
- Sides: 350°F covered, 20–30 minutes, stirred once.
- Biscuits: 350°F for five minutes, no foil, with the apple butter at room temperature.
- Rest the bird 15 minutes before carving. This matters more than anything else on the list.
The barbecue alternative
If nobody at your table is sentimental about turkey, the more interesting Thanksgiving order at Lucille's is the one that already exists all year. A Super Feast at $244.99 puts ribs and smoked meats on the table for ten to twelve people at about the same per-head cost, with no holiday deadline to miss. For a smaller group, seven-bone BBQ Beef Ribs at $31.99 — $4.57 a bone against $8.33 for three — make a genuinely festive centerpiece. The full group arithmetic, including why shared platters beat the feasts, is on the catering page, and current prices are on the Lucille's menu.
One last thing worth ordering whatever else you do: the desserts. Lucille's Perfect Peach Cobbler ($5.99) and Chris' Famous Bread Pudding ($5.99) are the strongest dessert list in chain barbecue, and they travel better than a pie you have to bake.