VIRGINIA BEACH — Java Surf Cafe and Espresso Bar at the Oceanfront is only closed two days of the year: Thanksgiving and Christmas.

But on Thanksgiving, the doors of the 1807 Mediterranean Ave. cafe aren’t actually closed. Business owners Dwayne and Rachel Appleton use the space to host a free Thanksgiving dinner to anyone who wants to join, including employees and customers who don’t have a home for the holiday.

“We’ll be in here with our family, with strangers, with neighbors, with customers, with employees,” Dwayne Appleton said. “It’s a really awesome way to spend the day.”

The Appletons have been hosting a free Thanksgiving dinner for the Virginia Beach community since 2015. They came up with the idea when they got engaged and decided to forge their own holiday traditions.

“This community and neighborhood supports us all year,” Dwayne Appleton said. “We decided that in our new family tradition that we wanted to be able to give back to the same community and Thanksgiving is the perfect platform for that.”

The dinners started out small. The first year the couple hosted 25 people, and the next the dinner grew to 60. This year, with help from Salt Church, they will have enough turkey, sides and desserts to feed more than 100 people for free.

There are no strings attached to the dinner, which is served family style inside of the Oceanfront cafe. All that’s expected is that people will come with open hearts, ready to share a meal and a piece of their lives with one another, Dwayne Appleton said.

The meal begins at noon and will run until 5 p.m.

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