LUZERNE, Pa. — The new year started with the phones ringing at The Grille in Luzerne with people calling for the restaurant's New Year's Day special.
"Normally we stay here all day and hope for the phone to ring," said Sabrina Seitz who works at the restaurant. "So it's good to hear it ringing all day. Long day sitting in an empty restaurant with no business. Hopefully, today ends up being a good day for us with the pork and kraut."
One of those calls was from John Karavis from Dallas.
"Oh, absolutely. It's been a crazy year in 2020," said Karavis. "We want to make sure we get off to 2021 with a good start, like I said, we're gonna start off with pork and sauerkraut. I have a meal we're taking it to my mom's house to enjoy with her, and then like I said, hopefully, we'll have good luck going forward from there."
Especially the kind of luck believed to be connected to the pork.
"The tradition that I know has..I know it is that if you have pork on New Year's Day, you're going to have good luck financially for the year. And if you have chicken you won't," explained Karavis.
Folks at The Grille in Luzerne tell Newswatch 16 after a year like 2020, New Year's Day pork and sauerkraut is needed now more than ever.
"Yes," agreed Seitz. "Everyone should eat out today we need a good year. Yes. 2020 has been bad for everyone, especially small restaurants like us so we could serve as much pork and kraut as we can today. That'd be great."
"Yeah, we need it all call them up the Grille. They know where to get it," said customer Joyssen Gonzalez from Duryea.
"Why not start off 2021 with some good homemade pork and sauerkraut from The Grille and Luzerne, and hopefully the rest of the things for the year will fall into place," said Karavis.
We can only hope.