Food is a Tennessee recruiting tool, from steak dinners to snack runs

When baseball, basketball and football recruits visit the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, they bring family, expectations and star power with them. What they quickly learn – sometimes before ever stepping on campus – is that they also better bring an appetite.

Food is a big part of the recruiting process for coaches like Kim Caldwell, who was hired to take over the Lady Vols program in April 2024, leaving little time for the Knoxville newcomer to dawdle. She plunged into the process of building a roster – nurturing relationships with high schoolers, enticing visits from transfers – and walked away with an unexpected lesson in efficiency.

“You spend a lot of time on your visits eating,” Caldwell said in August. “So, let’s speed that process up. You think I’m kidding, but when you have visits every weekend and you’re doing three sitdown meals a day for three days, it adds up.”

When former Alabama tight end Miles Kitselman came to town in January 2024, the Vols rolled out the Big Orange carpet. He was treated to breakfast at Ruby Sunshine his first morning, followed by a catered lunch from Carrabba’s on campus and dinner from one of Knoxville’s only riverside restaurants, Ruth’s Chris Steak House.

And when a big group of prospects gets together, tabs add up, sometimes totaling tens of thousands of dollars on the busiest of recruiting weekends.

All of this Knox News learned sifting through documents from between Jan. 1, 2024, and Jan. 31, 2025, that detail the football, men’s and women’s basketball and baseball teams’ dining habits when recruits visit Knoxville.  

Tennessee recruits sample a wide range from Knoxville’s food scene

“Food brings people together,” according to Bettina Hamblin, owner of the Farmacy restaurant just east of Bearden. Whether it’s Hamblin’s garlic-chardonnay chicken or her French onion short rib, a good meal can do the same for a basketball team.

Both basketball programs highlighted a broad sampling of Knoxville’s food culture. The Farmacy was one of 26 different places men’s basketball coach Rick Barnes chose for recruits’ dining in Knoxville, more variety than the football and baseball teams.

Barnes supported local spots like Aubrey’s and Bistro by the Tracks – both Burleson Brands restaurants – as well as Ola’s Catering and The Kennedy. And despite his lifetime contract to coach in Knoxville, Barnes still has a taste for the Lonestar State. His team spent nearly $3,500 across three visits to Texas Roadhouse with recruits.

But their favorite spot seems to be Sweet P’s BBQ, whose downtown dive with World’s Fair flair closed in 2025, leaving just the Fountain City location remaining. The men’s basketball team ate Sweet P’s more than the other programs, ordering from the local joint on six recruiting visits and racking up more than $7,000 worth of meals.

Caldwell came close to matching the men’s mix, with the women’s program relying on 20 restaurants, three grocery stores and two spots on campus to keep recruits fed.

The Lady Vols also were one of two programs to call on private hibachi services like Cookin’ With Coffield, which put together a $4,185 dinner for recruits Jaida Civil, Grace Knox and Deniya Prawl on Oct. 11, along with a $1,680 breakfast the following morning.

Knoxville punches above its weight class when it comes to local dining options.

Lady Vols recruits tasted some of finest dining Knoxville has to offer at The Lonesome Dove, which Knox News reported in 2023 had the most expensive dish in town: a 32-ounce wagyu tomahawk ribeye for $195. Their dinner from the Old City fixture – founded by celebrity chef Tim Love – totaled $1,224.90. (The steak, for what it’s worth, is just $190 these days).

This isn’t to suggest the women’s team is pretentious when it comes to picking a place for players’ meals. Aspiring all-star athletes can still enjoy an All-Star Special, though former Penn State player Leilani Kapinus ended up at a Knoxville Waffle House for dinner while visiting before ultimately transferring to Vanderbilt in 2024. The tab totaled $45.60, which paled in comparison to her breakfast at Tupelo Honey for $240.91.

Farther down the food totem pole, snacks were a huge hit with women’s basketball recruits compared to other teams. The Lady Vols documented $956.06 worth of grocery store runs with Kroger, Target and Walmart.

Big recruiting weekends = big bucks spent on food for visitors

Tennessee football is the king of catering and group dining on big visitor weekends.

A single catered dinner from Spaces in the City totaled $46,496.82 as part of a massive June 2024 recruiting weekend for the team. Over three days, 26 recruits also enjoyed a $21,437.50 dinner from Calhoun’s and a Marriott breakfast twice that price for $42,732.

A wide range of Knoxville restaurants benefit from the recruiting business, but programs tend to return to their favorites time and time again. After spending more than $110,000 on those three meals, the football team spent $19,162 on a Spaces in the City dinner, $15,325 on a Calhoun’s dinner and $39,462 for a Marriott breakfast when 12 recruits visited the following weekend.

Tennessee tends to take one of two approaches when hosting transfer portal recruits. Visitors in January – after the football season was over – spent more time dining out and exploring Knoxville’s food scene. Ruth’s Chris was a fixture for football during portal visits, serving meals to Sam Pendleton, Star Thomas and Jaxson Moi, in addition to Kitselman.

But when transfers visit Knoxville as the team is practicing for a bowl game, records show, they tend to stick around and dine at Smokey’s, a restaurant within a campus athletics facility.

Baseball recruits got food with a side of football under Tony Vitello when visitor weekends aligned with game days at Neyland Stadium. The baseball program regularly catered meals to Lindsey Nelson Stadium during these busy weekends because of the volume of visitors in town for football.

Fast-casual Mexican food chain Dos Bros provided meals to baseball recruits on three large visitor weekends. Brenz Pizza, just around the corner from campus on the Strip, also was a common choice.

On three occasions, so was Dead End BBQ, which was one of two places that provided meals during pitcher Chandler Day’s official visit in August 2024. The other was Ruth’s Chris, where the tab totaled $1,250.91.

VIP experiences: Private hibachi, dinner at coach’s home and more

Just as some players start and others come off the bench, some recruits are treated to upscale sit-down dinners in hopes of earning their commitment to UT while others only spend time in groups.  

Chaz Lanier was at the core of Tennessee basketball’s 2024 recruiting efforts and was treated like a star when he visited that May. The dining tab for his visit ran $8,064.26, including a $4,613.04 dinner at Ruth’s Chris (the largest single meal expense for an individual visitor).

Ola’s Catering prepared the first Knoxville meal for the high-scoring North Florida transfer, who came to town late May 20 after a visit to Kentucky. His first breakfast was at First Watch and was followed by a lunch from Gus’s World Famous Fried Chicken and a Ruth’s Chris dinner. Lanier wrapped up his visit with breakfast from the Maker Exchange, located within the downtown Marriott.

New Jersey twins Mia and Mya Pauldo, now freshmen for the Lady Vols, enjoyed quite the spread when they came to town in June 2024. They had meals from six restaurants during their visit, including a New York-style pizza lunch at Gavino’s for $620.

And just as baseball recruits showed their support for the football team while visiting, Moi caught a Tennessee basketball game Jan. 20, 2024, that featured a 25-point showing from Dalton Knecht and ended with a 91-71 win over Alabama. Moi enjoyed an $898 Food City Center lunch while watching the game at Thompson-Boling Arena.

Wendell Moe Jr. might have had the most personal dining experience among recruits when he visited in December 2024. Standing 6 feet, 2 inches and weighing 330 pounds, the offensive lineman committed to transferring from Arizona to Tennessee three days after his visit to Knoxville, which included a $2,635.72 meal at the home of offensive line coach Glen Elarbee.

Before transferring from USC to Oregon, fellow offensive lineman Emmanuel Pregnon was treated in Knoxville to Dulcie’s Café – a hole-in-the wall Jamaican restaurant that locals love, out-of-towners hope to find and that recently expanded to Gay Street.  

Football was the other program to use a private hibachi service. High school recruit Antonio Ogumoro visited in May 2024 and enjoyed a $1,308 meal from Let’s Hibachi, which provides a chef, grill, food and entertainment for a 90-minute dining experience.

Food and entertainment: a dynamic duo for Tennessee recruiting

The programs also found ways to blend food and entertainment at places like Topgolf and underground Gay Street bowling alley Maple Hall, which the baseball program visited on three occasions for about $3,000 each time.

Basketball recruits Isaiah Dennis and Caleb Wilson also visited Maple Hall in October 2024, with Tennessee spending $868.60 on dinner and $500 on bowling.

Every June visitor weekend for football listed expenses for “boat on lake,” and the program also called upon the Volunteer Princess dinner cruise five times. UT treated offensive recruits June 14, 2024, to breakfast on the boat for $5,813. The defensive players got to dine while cruising the Tennessee River the following day for $5,053.55.

Records showed at least one of the programs ordered from Cafe 4, Holly’s Gourmet Market, Irvey’s Ice Cream, Kilwin’s, Redbud Kitchen and Scrambled Jake’s Breakfast Company. Recruits also ate food from Fieldhouse Social near campus and Frothy Monkey on Gay Street, both of which have since closed.

Knox News reporter Joanna Hayes covers restaurants and retail for the business growth and development team. Email: joanna.hayes@knoxnews.com; Instagram: @knoxeat65. Sign up for Joanna’s Eat65 email newsletter to get the latest drink and dining news, as well as restaurant recommendations, at knoxnews.com/newsletters