Is Publix Open On Thanksgiving? Some Grocery Chains Give Their Crew The Day Off

Your entire family is over for Thanksgiving dinner. You're juggling the turkey and four different side dishes when you realize you're missing the crucial ingredient for your mother-in-law's favorite dish. The horror! Now comes the million dollar question: Is Publix open on Thanksgiving 2019? After all, this will make all the difference in the success of your Thanksgiving meal (and, of course, your MIL's happiness).

OK, this scenario might not actually be your worst fear, or even in your top 10, but it's still pretty stressful. While ideally you won't be sprinting into any grocery store on Thanksgiving, Publix won't be the one to bail you out if you find yourself in this situation. "Publix stores will be closed on Thanksgiving day in order to allow our associates to spend time with their families and friends giving thanks," a Publix customer service rep tells Romper via email. So should you forget something (and quite frankly, it seems inevitable) you'll have to head to another grocery store, like Safeway or Kroger, which are both open on turkey day.

The best way to avoid a last minute mad dash to a supermarket, of course, is to plan carefully. Instead of relying on your memory during your massive, pre-Thanksgiving shop, spend some time gathering up your recipes and making a detailed shopping list of everything you need, including the specific amounts.

Lucky for you, Publix has you covered for this part. Not only do they have an entire database of almost 2,500 recipes to peruse while planning your Thanksgiving feast, each one comes with a shopping list so you know exactly what you need to purchase to create the dish. Add each individual recipe's shopping list to your "master" shopping list at the top of the page, and you'll end up with a comprehensive list of all the ingredients required for your entire meal. If you want to make things really easy, you can even select all your groceries on their website and have the groceries delivered or available for pick-up. The more organized you are during your recipe planning and shopping, the less chaotic Thanksgiving Day will be. Well, hopefully.

As you probably know — or will soon figure out — hosting the Thanksgiving meal is not cheap, so if you end up shopping at Publix, check out the digital coupons offered online. They're organized into categories, like "Baking," "Dairy," and "Beverage," so you should be able to find applicable coupons relatively quickly.

It probably goes without saying, but don't forget to be a little nicer than necessary if you do wind up heading to any grocery store on Thanksgiving Day. These employees are forgoing their own family meals to work, and they're undoubtedly dealing with disgruntled Thanksgiving shoppers, too. Some extra patience and a smile can go a long way.