A Family Tradition

For Sam and the rest of the Greenberg family, the smell of smoked turkey signals the start of the holiday season. The week of Thanksgiving, Greenberg Smoked Turkeys welcomes thousands of people from Tyler (and around the country) to buy smoked turkeys since so many people want one for the holidays. For Sam, it’s like a festival, and it’s one of the most significant parts of the business. That’s what makes it the Greenberg tradition.

When the business was just starting out, it grew by word of mouth. Initially, Sam’s grandfather would prepare turkeys for his friends and family. When he gave them their turkeys, they would then ask him to smoke it for them as well. From there, his friends and family told their friends and family, and the Greenberg Smoked Turkeys business was born.

While Sam’s grandfather smoked the turkeys, his mother would coordinate the billing from a card table in their garage. Since no one owned a credit card back then, they would bill people at the end of the month. His mother was also one of the reasons Sam and the rest of the Greenberg family love Thanksgiving so much. She would host large Thanksgiving gatherings with their family, and at each gathering, they would always eat turkey.

Jake Greenberg shared that one of his favorite traditions from the Thanksgiving gatherings is snacking before the meals and then enjoying the turkey and stuffing when it is ready.

Griffin Goodman, Sam’s nephew, enjoys seeing the Greenberg turkey boxes scattered around town following the Thanksgiving holiday. Seeing those boxes shows him how impactful the Greenberg turkeys really are.

The Greenberg traditions have become a staple in the family’s household, and their willingness to share these traditions with their community has encouraged people to create their own traditions that they can cherish for years to come. For Sam, “there is still room for a tradition and something that may not come to you quite as fast as from some other company. But people know the value of an old, established company and the traditions they had in their family when they had them. And we hope to continue that with our turkey.”