"When it gets down to crunch time, you hope that everything will run smoothly from beginning to end," said Chung, assistant general manager at Food Solutions, which is a division of FCH Enterprises, owner and operator of Zippy's, Napoleon's Bakery and A Catered Experience. "We've had glitches before and we pray we never have them again."

For almost a decade, A Catered Experience has made preparing a Thanksgiving holiday meal look like a snap.

"The turkey is made hot and not pre-cooked, frozen and then thawed," Chun said. "All that's required is to re-heat the side dishes, which anyone can do with a microwave."

For $73.95, the complete turkey dinner comes with all the basics, including an eight- to 10-pound fully-cooked roasted turkey, four pounds each of real mashed potatoes and poultry gravy, three pounds of moist stuffing, a pound of cranberry relish, a dozen dinner rolls and a pumpkin pie from Napoleon's Bakery.

"I think having a 'hot' roast turkey gives us an edge over other places that offer similar packages," Chun said. "And I also think that our dinners are competitively priced."

Starting Thanksgiving eve at 10 p.m., a team of cooks will file in and start unwrapping turkeys , removing the giblets and begin seasoning the 800 birds.

"We commandeer Napoleon's huge ovens," Chung laughed. "Three of them can handle 80 turkeys each at one time and another four can take up to 60 each. Coordination gets a little tricky here because Napoleon's will need some of its ovens back by 5 a.m. on Thanksgiving Day."

This gives Chung and his staff just enough time to ready the first wave of pick-ups, which start at 9 a.m. sharp in the parking lot of the Hawaii Okinawa Center.

A Catered Experience's turkey package is enough for a party of eight to 10 guests. Larger families have the opportunity to add more to their dinner by ordering such items as uncut maki sushi rolls, fresh dinner rolls, real mashed potatoes, poultry gravy, stuffing, cranberry-pineapple relish and a Napoleon's Bakery pumpkin, custard or apple pie.

When placing your order, be sure to tell the staff the approximate time that you'll be picking up your meal. Pick-up times are between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m, on Thanksgiving Day.