Ernie Marot readies the pre-Thanksgiving dinner with his daughter Anne-Marie Sullivan, left, and many volunteers at the Pawtucket soup kitchen at St. Joseph Church in Pawtucket.

The Providence Journal / John Freidah

PAWTUCKET

The turkey is ready –– all 16 of them.

Coming up: fresh-brewed coffee and rolls right out of the oven. But hold the gravy!

“I’ll let you know at five to,” Ernie Marot says. “It gets cold too easily.”

“What’s in there, coffee? I didn’t tell anybody to do that,” Marot says with military demeanor, as one of the volunteers returns with two pots of regular coffee that were taken out too early.

“Another 10 minutes. Time is of the essence,” Marot says as he urges on his army of volunteers.

For the past 18 years, this “general” of sorts –– who years ago traded the stockroom of Swank in Attleboro for the kitchen of the Dominican Friars at Providence College –– has been at the helm of the Pawtucket soup kitchen, these days run out of the St. Joseph Church basement on Walcott Street.

Marot, who turned 81 Thursday and has trouble getting around, is looking for a replacement.

So far, he hasn’t found any takers for a six-day-a-week job, minus holidays, that pays ... well, the gratification of a job well done.

As the first 70 people arrive Wednesday afternoon –– the first of three pre-Thanksgiving dinners dished out every year at the soup kitchen –– Marot springs into action, directing everyone and everything around him. The mayor and City Council members, lawyers and doctors, men and women sentenced to community service, they are all the same in the eyes of Ernie Marot.

He dispatches Richard Forest, of Seekonk, to pick up more margarine and instructs Ray Gannon, of Pawtucket, to seat people as they come in. There will be no saving of seats, Marot tells him.

“When they serve the first table, somebody go around with the rolls and somebody go around with the cranberry sauce,” Marot tells a group of volunteers as they divide the tasks among themselves.

“But one roll only. Don’t give them two,” he adds.

“Ernie, [if] worse comes to worst, we can use the rolls we picked up today, too,” says Forest.

By then, Ernie –– already on his second regular coffee –– has moved on to the next task.

You won’t get any boss-dissing here, though.

Marot runs a tight ship –– and rightfully so, volunteers say.

“He doesn’t want [the food] just plopped on the plate,” says Karen Fleming, of Providence. And “the rolls can’t go out too early because they get stale.”

“He’s the closest thing you got to an angel,” adds Joe Langlois, another volunteer from Pawtucket.

Marot, who has circulation problems with both legs and requires leg braces to walk, did not sit down until dinner started wrapping up. No food for him, yet, just another coffee — this one, decaf.

Diners called out his name as they left. Ernie’s mind had already moved on to the next task: prepping for the second seating that would be arriving in roughly an hour.

More potatoes to peel, veggies to clean, and coffee, plenty of coffee to go with the pies.

“We get to start all over again,” said Jane Hellen of Pawtucket.

marmenta@projo.com