FORT WAYNE – While moms sit home tonight thawing turkeys and baking pumpkin pies, sons and daughters will be indulging in a different sort of Thanksgiving tradition.

Let’s call it the Flocking of the College Kids.

Where do they gather? Local bars and restaurants.

When? The day before Thanksgiving, when even those who attend out-of-state schools are back in town to celebrate the holiday.

Why? To catch up with old friends.

“This is normally the busiest night of the year for us,” said Dan White, owner of Wrigley Field Bar & Grill. “You’ve got to put on twice the help.”

Relatives who live out of town will also return and drop in on their favorite local restaurants today.

“It’s not just the night. That whole day is pretty much a good one for us,” said Cristina Ray, who owns El Azteca, a Mexican restaurant and bar. “We make sure we’re fully staffed.”

But it’s the college crowd that has most bartenders hopping.

Doug Toedte, a bartender at Henry’s, was prepping garnishes late Tuesday afternoon. The night before Thanksgiving is one of the bar’s busiest nights, along with New Year’s Eve and St. Patrick’s Day, he said.

Toedte expects customers to come in waves and start earlier than usual – about 7 p.m.

“Generally, the younger crowd isn’t content to stay at one bar, so they hop around,” he said. “This is where a lot of people start off their night.”

Wrigley Field isn’t waiting until nighttime to draw in customers.

For the first time, the bar and restaurant will open at 6 a.m. and offer a free breakfast buffet. Beer specials will be on tap throughout the day. A DJ will work in the evening, taking requests.

White wants to make his bar’s biggest day even bigger, trying to offset some of the 25 percent of sales lost this year compared to last.

People just aren’t drinking as much as they used to.

“It takes twice as many people to make the same amount (of profit) as we did three or four years ago. A lot of us are hurting,” White said about local bars and restaurants.

The bar owner blames some of the slump on the loss of Cherry Masters video slot machines and enforcement of a smoking ban. But weak sales aren’t unique to Fort Wayne.

“All the research we’ve done shows that business is really soft in bars and restaurants,” said David Henkes, vice president with Technomic, a Chicago-based restaurant-industry consulting group.

It’s hard to quantify the busiest nights at bars, Henkes said. But he suspects the night before Thanksgiving is a big one nationwide. After all, he said, not everyone is a sports fan.

“I would certainly put it as one of the top five bar nights of the year,” he said.

Matthew Risk, a bartender at Henry’s, said the party atmosphere makes Thanksgiving his favorite weekend to work.

White loves seeing the hugs, hearing the squeals and feeling the excitement of friends reunited – even for just one night.

“It’s an awesome atmosphere,” he said. “I’m really looking forward to it.”

sslater@jg.net