Leon’s employees and volunteers entertain the crowd during a free Thanksgiving dinner celebration at a Leon’s restaurant in a past year. PHOTO: George Nakad

DEARBORN — On Wednesday, November 26th, the day before Thanksgiving, Leon’s Restaurant on Michigan Avenue will host a free Thanksgiving dinner open to the public from 2-8 p.m.With the local and national economies mired in a deep recession, Leon’s vice president Tom Lewis and his partner Samir Leon expect to see a bigger turnout than in years past, perhaps the biggest in the 12 years they’ve been hosting the popular Dearborn community event.”I think we’ll see more people than we have before,” said Lewis. “We can only serve so many people but we’ll try and serve as many as we possibly can.”In order to prepare for the event, Lewis said that Leon’s is again keeping its staff as full as possible while also bringing in volunteers throughout the day to help clean and serve meals to hungry customers.Each meal will consistent of turkey, soup, mashed potatoes with gravy, vegetable dressing, pumpkin pie, and a beverage of either coffee or soda. While the event has been a huge success in Dearborn for years, Lewis said he often doesn’t see a very large contingent of Arab customers. He’s not sure why but he added that he expects more to come out this year as the Arab population continues to grow in the city.”Hopefully we’ll get more Arab customers this year,” he said. “Everyone is welcome and we expect to have a ton of different people show up. People are always coming in and out all the time.”Leon’s Restaurant is located at 23830 Michigan Avenue in Dearborn.