Five dollars and fifty-two cents buys one place setting at the American Thanksgiving table, provided the cook does the work. That figure comes from the American Farm Bureau Federation’s 2025 survey, and every number in this post describes Thanksgiving 2025, not the one arriving on November 26, 2026. This year’s results were not yet published when this was written. Last year’s, though, show a turkey dinner priced two entirely different ways, and the gap between them is the story.
The $5.52 Plate
The Farm Bureau has priced a classic Thanksgiving basket for 40 years, and the 2025 edition landed on November 19. Shoppers in all 50 states and Puerto Rico priced a meal for ten that included a turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, rolls, peas, cranberries, a veggie tray, pumpkin pie and the milk and cream to go with it. The bill came to $55.18, about $5.52 a person, and it was 5 percent lower than in 2024. It was the third year in a row of declines.
The turkey did most of the work. A 16-pound frozen bird cost $21.50, or $1.34 a pound, down 16.3 percent from the year before. Dinner rolls fell 14.6 percent and cubed stuffing mix 9 percent. The Farm Bureau’s economist, Faith Parum, said it was “encouraging to see some relief in the price of turkeys.”
Not everything on the table got cheaper. The veggie tray climbed 61.3 percent, sweet potatoes 37 percent, frozen peas 17.2 percent and a gallon of whole milk 16.3 percent. A larger version of the meal, adding a boneless ham, Russet potatoes and green beans, ran $77.09 for ten.
A Smaller Flock, a Cheaper Bird
A shrinking turkey flock and a falling grocery price should not share a season, and yet they did.
Axios reported on October 19, 2025 that U.S. farmers raised about 195 million turkeys, down 3 percent from a year earlier and 36 percent below the 1996 peak, the smallest flock in 40 years. The same report cited a USDA wholesale forecast of $1.32 a pound, about 40 percent above the prior year. Planet Detroit, republishing Bridge Michigan, put the projected frozen wholesale price at $1.34, up from 94 cents, and a Purdue projection for fresh retail turkey at $2.05 a pound, roughly 25 percent higher. At that rate a 15-pound bird would run about $31.
Avian flu sat behind the tight supply. According to the Michigan Farm Bureau figures in that Planet Detroit piece, 18.7 million turkeys have been affected nationally since 2022. Axios counted nearly 514,000 more in new outbreaks during October 2025, mostly in Minnesota.
How did the shelf price fall while wholesale rose? The National Turkey Federation’s Leslee Oden supplied the clue. “Turkeys are kind of the loss leader on the Thanksgiving table,” she told Axios, which means grocers often sell the bird at a thin margin to bring shoppers through the door. Alex Davidson of the same trade group told Bridge Michigan that most holiday buyers choose frozen birds, and that grocers routinely discount them. Two numbers from the same season, then, are both correct. They measure different points in the supply chain.
Context helps here, too. The same Planet Detroit report notes that the 2025 wholesale projection of $1.34 still sits below the 2023 average of $1.40. The jump looks dramatic because 2024 was unusually cheap, at an average of 94 cents. A cheap year followed by a tight one produces a steep percentage, even when the dollar amount is not far from where it was two years earlier.
The Other Check: Long Island Restaurants
Cooking at home is one way to price the meal. Buying it already roasted is another, and on Long Island the second check is a different order of magnitude.
MommyPoppins publishes a list of family-friendly restaurants open on Thanksgiving, updated January 29, 2026 for the 2025 holiday. It gives adult prices for twelve Long Island restaurants. For ranges, the table uses the lower figure.
| Restaurant | Town | Adult price, Thanksgiving 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Seasons 52 | Garden City | $44.00 |
| The Capital Grille | Garden City | $55.00 |
| Opus Mediterranean Steakhouse | Jericho | $55.00 |
| Uncle Bacala’s | Garden City Park | $56.95 (prix fixe) |
| Eric’s Italian Bistro | Mineola | $58.95 (prix fixe) |
| La Piazza | Melville | $59.00 |
| The Coral House | Baldwin | $62.95 |
| Tweed’s Restaurant and Buffalo Bar | Riverhead | $64.00 (prix fixe, listed up to $66.40) |
| Milleridge Inn | Jericho | $72.95 (listed up to $75.95) |
| Davenport Press | Mineola | $75.95 |
| East Wind Long Island | Wading River | $79.95 |
| Harbor Mist | Cold Spring Harbor | $87.00 (three courses) |
The cheapest listing is $44 and the most expensive is $87. The median of the twelve is $60.98, which works out to about eleven times the Farm Bureau’s $5.52 per person. Children’s prices on the same list ranged from $15 at the Wantagh Inn to $39.95 at Davenport Press and East Wind.
A family of four shows the spread clearly. At La Piazza, two adults at $59 and two children at $32 come to $182 before tax and tip. At The Coral House, two adults at $62.95 and two children at $32.95 come to $191.80. The Farm Bureau’s per-person figure puts the same four seats at about $22 at home. Those totals are simple multiplication from the listed prices, and they leave out tax, gratuity, drinks and dessert upgrades.
Two cautions apply. This is a list of restaurants, not diners, and most of them sell multi-course prix fixe dinners or buffets with service built into the price. The Farm Bureau basket, meanwhile, prices raw ingredients and nothing else. Comparing them shows how far apart the two ways of eating Thanksgiving dinner sit, but it does not show that either side overcharges. That conclusion is arithmetic and not a finding from any of the sources.
Where a Diner Sits Between Them
Diners rarely appear on lists like that one, because few publish a holiday menu in advance. One that did was the Heritage Diner in Mount Sinai, the restaurant behind this blog. Its 2025 post advertised a family-style Thanksgiving meal at $29.99 per person, available on Thanksgiving Day. The listing includes soup or salad, fresh hand-carved turkey, sourdough walnut raisin apple stuffing, cranberry sauce and turkey gravy, vegetables and potatoes, and pumpkin pie. The full 2025 menu is on the site.
Set beside the other two figures, that price lands at roughly half the $60.98 median and a little over five times the Farm Bureau’s home-cooked $5.52. A single diner is one data point and not a survey, so the comparison only shows where that menu falls between the two extremes.
The pairing of turkey and diner counter is also older than it looks. Food historian Jan Whitaker traced turkey on American restaurant menus back to colonial taverns, and noted that boneless turkey rolls introduced in the 1950s made turkey sandwiches and dinner specials far easier for restaurants to offer. For a version made at home, the open-faced hot turkey recipe covers the white bread and yellow gravy.
A Very Old Argument About What Turkey Should Cost
Complaints about the price of a turkey dinner are not new. Whitaker’s history records a 1908 waiter who argued that a 25-cent turkey dinner meant the birds were of poor quality. Fifteen years earlier, at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893, the Electric Restaurant charged 50 cents for stuffed turkey with apple sauce, against 45 cents for roast beef with potatoes.
The same suspicion runs through the 2025 numbers. A cheap bird at the grocery store may be a loss leader, and a pricey one at a restaurant may be paying for service, space and labor. Neither price tells the whole story without knowing what the seller sells next to it.
For readers planning dessert, the diner pie countdown covers what the case looks like as November approaches.
Questions People Ask
How much did a Thanksgiving dinner cost in 2025?
The American Farm Bureau Federation’s survey put a classic dinner for ten at $55.18, about $5.52 per person, down 5 percent from 2024.
How much was a Thanksgiving turkey in 2025?
The Farm Bureau priced a 16-pound frozen turkey at $21.50, or $1.34 a pound, down 16.3 percent. Purdue projected whole fresh turkey at $2.05 a pound at retail, roughly 25 percent higher than the year before.
Why did turkey prices rise if the Farm Bureau says they fell?
The two figures measure different things. Wholesale prices rose because of avian flu and the smallest flock in 40 years, while the Farm Bureau’s survey measured shelf prices, where turkeys are often discounted as a loss leader.
What did Thanksgiving dinner cost at Long Island restaurants in 2025?
Twelve restaurants on one published list ranged from $44 to $87 per adult, with a median of $60.98 by this post’s calculation.
What will Thanksgiving 2026 cost?
No 2026 figures were available when this was written. The Farm Bureau’s 2025 results arrived on November 19, so the new survey is likely to follow a similar timeline.
This is for informational purposes only — consult a licensed attorney or financial advisor for your specific situation.
Sources
- American Farm Bureau Federation, “Cost of Thanksgiving Dinner Declines” (November 19, 2025)
- Feedstuffs, “Thanksgiving Cost Drops a Bit in 2025” (November 19, 2025)
- Axios, “Thanksgiving turkey shortage fears grow as avian flu spreads” (October 19, 2025)
- Planet Detroit / Bridge Michigan, “Thanksgiving turkey prices are higher this year, and bird flu is to blame” (November 14, 2025)
- MommyPoppins, “15 Family-Friendly Restaurants Open on Thanksgiving on Long Island in 2025” (updated January 29, 2026)
- Jan Whitaker, “Turkey on the Menu,” Restaurant-ing Through History (2017)
- Heritage Diner, “Let Us Cook for You This Thanksgiving” (November 14, 2025)
