Chef of Charity Is Nearly Left Holding the Bag : Thanksgiving: A Palmdale cafe owner cooks meals for the needy, but the promised hungry people never appear. A local church steps in.

Talk about leftovers.

Dan Bendov almost had enough for 50, until new recipients were found for the Thanksgiving dinners he cooked for the hungry.

Bendov, a Palmdale cafe owner who said he knows from personal experience the humiliation that comes with being homeless, wanted to do something to help the down and out. So he cooked turkey dinners at his restaurant on East Palmdale Boulevard, Ribs ‘N Stuff, for 25 needy Antelope Valley residents, each of whom was going to get a second dinner to take home.

“Life has been tough on me and I just wanted to do something now that I can,” said Bendov, who said he lived briefly in his car in the 1970s.

By late afternoon, the varnished picnic tables at Bendov’s restaurant in the corner of a nondescript mini-mall were covered with plates of turkey, potatoes and pies he prepared over the past few days.

“This is just like your mama cooked,” Bendov said proudly. “Real turkeys--not that turkey-loaf stuff.”

He had even disconnected the video games and jukebox, planning to say they were broken so that children would not embarrass their parents by asking for precious quarters.

But at 5 p.m, when the hungry people were supposed to arrive, no one showed up. When he tried to call the charitable organization that had promised to bring in hungry people, Bendov found the group’s phone had been disconnected.

He had spoken with a representative of the group on Wednesday, he said.

“I’m really angry about all this,” he said. “I put all this together to feed the homeless and these people jerked me around.”

Bendov then spent three hours on the telephone with ministers and other charitable groups throughout the Antelope Valley trying to give away the food. At first, the only takers were about 10 firefighters and sheriff’s deputies who dropped in on their dinner break.

‘I’m really worried,” Bendov said at 7:30 p.m.

“I don’t want to have to throw all this nice food into the street.”

Rescue arrived at 8 p.m. in the form of Mark Byers, pastor of Lake Los Angeles Foursquare Church, who heard about the leftovers from another pastor.

“We run a food ministry. We usually feed between 150 and 200 people a week,” Byers said. “We don’t have the facilities to cook hot meals, but we distribute bags of food.”

Byers said he hoped to give away as many dinners Thursday night as possible. The remainder he planned to refrigerate and distribute Saturday morning at his church, when he usually gives out bags of groceries.

“My associates are on the phone right now,” Byers said. “This was a disappointment for Mr. Bendov, but it’s a miracle for us.”