Why is it that better quality full service restaurants usually don’t have turkey on the menu? I know it can’t be because they only grow turkeys during the holiday season, because otherwise, how could Jared Fogel get the thousands of turkey sandwiches that he eats every week from Subway?
Every time Thanksgiving rolls around, I think to myself, turkey is damn tasty. Too bad restaurants don’t usually offer it.
This is an educated guess, so take it for what it’s worth…
You can get turkey deli-style throughout the year because it is prepared specifically to be packaged and have a shelf-life of some sort. You can also often get turkey chunked in pasta and salads throughout the year, again because of how it has been prepared and packaged (i.e., not byt he restaurant itself).
I think the key is that the amount of time it would take to prepare properly would quickly make it uneconomical. Chicken is small, and can be roasted (or fried, or whatever) fairly quickly and thus served hot and fresh to customers in a reasonable amount of time. Turkey takes a long time to cook. Even a small breast of turkey takes a couple hours to roast (less in a convection oven, but still), and takes up an entire oven.
It is served by some restaurants trhoughout the year when they have developed a customer base that can be counted on to regularly order it and thus make it worthwhile to cook.
This doesn’t even remotely answer your question, but I wish to point out that military chow halls serve turkey several times a week all through the year. And it’s not processed, it’s honest-to-God roasted turkey.
I think it used to be served more, but went out of fashion with other plain meat dishes. When was the last time you saw a restaurant with a roast beef cart, for example? Aside from steak, people tend to look for more spicy/exotic preparations, especially with something fairly bland, like chicken or turkey.
Apparently it was popular in fine restaurants at one time. IIRC, they order it at the Harmonia Gardens in Hello Dolly.
As was pointed out, roast turkey is sort of time intensive.
Moreover, though, it is very much associated with Thanksgiving and Christmas (at least here in the US). As much as I enjoy it, I think that the fact that I only have it twice a year has something to do with how much I like it. It is a special meal with strong associations.
The OP question concerned turkey served in better quality full service restaurants.
I recall one holiday season several years ago when W. Puck prepared a turkey for one of the cable TV shows.
Whoever the host was mentioned that Mr. Puck had prepared a pretty traditional version of the bird.
Puck replied that that was the way most people expected it.
As a result this was the way he prepared the bird on Thanksgiving and Christmas (so he admitted that his restaurant did serve this dish around those days.
He also pointed out restraints he had as a commercial cook. The thigh meat needed to stay at something like 185 F. for a considerable period (and there you start to get into the time intensive area already mentioned).
Personally, I think it’s because turkey tastes nasty and it shouldn’t even be served for Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Do they have turkeys in France? A lot of our “fine restaurant” tradition is directly imported from over there.
Well there is this resturant from my youth. I don’t know if you could call it “fine” dining, but it’s good eating.
Turkeys get almost no play in fine restaurants, but ostrich is usually easy to come by.
I do like roast turkey and about once a month I’ll get some from a place like Marie Callendars or Black Eye Pea.
Some restaurants have signs, proclaiming, “We reserve right to refuse service to anyone”… and they usually don’t serve turkeys.
Turkey is just about the worst tasting fowl. Fine restaurants would do much better using Goose, or Guinnie Fowl, Duck, Quail, or Even Chicken for a roast fowl dish. You cn take the time and make a plesant Turkey dinner, but the same time spent cooking Goose would give a far better result. Turkey’s only redeaming feature is that it is relatively cheap, probably the reason for the military serving it often.
We bought some turkey breasts packaged like chicken breasts. “Great for Grilling” they said.
Not so much. No flavor, and I LOVE turkey. We’ve got one defrosting in the fridge right now. Love love love the stuff.
Oh, man, I haven’t been there in AGES ! It’s an experience that can’t possibly be explained, though the website does try 
Hofbraus are the way to go. When I get a roast turkey craving I go to Brennan’s in Berkeley. Solid, reliable turkey meals ( along with their reliable, solid roast beef, corned beef and pastrami meals ).
Saves me from eating turkey for a week. I can and do cook them from time to time, but I find you need the whole bird to due it right. The stand-alone breasts just don’t cut it and I prefer the dark meat anyway.
I remember dining on turkey necks with lentils at a small brasserie on the rue Lepic in Montmartre, back when I was a poor student attracted by menus complets for under ten francs.
And if I can remember a cheap meal for well over 20 years, it must have been awfully good.
I asked my husband, who grew up in the area, if he’d ever been there. His comment was simply “Oy.” 
So the fare isn’t fowl … ?
I would almost think the size of most turkeys alone has something to do with why fine dining places don’t serve it. You can get quite a few meals off a turkey breast, but if you’re going to roast one, and only one customer orders it that night, you’re going to have an awful lot of turkey going back into the walk-in. Leftover turkey, no matter how tasty it is (especially when you eat it with a generous smear of cranberry sauce and gravy, on Wonder Bread, in the middle of the night with the fridge door open) does not really make for a gourmet meal in a high-class place. And no matter how delectable a turkey leg is at the Renaissance Faire, it’s kind of unwieldy for gourmet fare (ha! I made a pun!)
The only fancy-restaurant food I can think of that comes in such largish portions is prime rib, and that’s something a LOT of people order.
I’ll trade you my cranberry sauce and candied yams for your turkey.