The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Croatian Club holds drive-through food service
The parking lot at the Croatian Club in Lorain was lined with vehicles June 27, as folks were looking to get an ethnic food fix.
The food, prepared by members of the club, is typically sold with a variety of other foods from cultures around the world at an annual Lorain International Association Festival, which was canceled due to the novel coronavirus.
The club still wanted to sell the foods around the same time the festival would have been, so the idea for the drive-through was put into motion.
“We have food sales that we would normally sell at the International Festival being sold in a drivethrough capacity,” said Chris Thomas, head trustee for the club, located at 4846 Oberlin Ave. “We had very successful drive-through venues for the fish fries that we did all through lent, and the drive-through went very well for us. That was during the main COVID shutdown, so we decided to hold the drive-through for International weekend-type foods.”
Thomas said the goal of the drive-through was to sell all the favorite foods people expect at the festival.
“We are serving chicken paprikash, stuffed cabbage, cabbage and noodles, and we have a dinner special that includes all three of those,” he said. “The interest has definitely been there. People have been calling to place orders and we simply were not ready. People are definitely ready to eat.”
Thomas said much hard work was involved.
“We started prepping weeks in advance,” he said. “Everyone is a volunteer, so you have to make things work with everyone’s schedules. It took a long time to prepare hundreds of everything from the chicken paprikash to cabbage and noodles. I think it was a couple hundred pounds of meat that we used for everything. I also want to mention we got all the quality meats from Fligner’s (Market).”
Thomas said the demand for the food has been greater than expected.
“This was originally a two-day event,” he said. “We are going until 6 p.m. today or until we run out. We are already out of stuffed cabbage for today, so a lot of folks want the food. We are glad to have still found a way to provide the service, but it’s been a little crazy today.”
Thomas said he is not sure how much food will be there for day two.
“The plan was to do this tomorrow (June 28) as well,” he said. “We were going to start at noon and go to 4 p.m., but I’m not sure if we will have enough. Folks can come drive through to check, but I want folks to know there will not be any call-in or pre-orders. You need to drive through to order.”