photo by: Contributed

Stacks of shawarma meals from Shawarma Press are set out for players in Kansas football's facilities.

It takes a ton of protein and carbs to feed a flock of Jayhawk football players – certainly more than Shawarma Press co-owner Atrooba Hashim had imagined.

Recently, her restaurant got an order from the team for 115 lunch boxes. “In my mind, 115 shawarmas doesn’t seem that much. And on top of that, 115 lunch boxes doesn’t seem that much,” she said.

“Until we started packing them. And I was like, ‘This is a lot of food! Wow!

“I mean, to be an athlete, you have to be so well off nutritionally,” she went on. “And it made sense. I was like, ‘Now I see.'”

photo by: Contributed

Shawarma Press co-owners Atrooba Hashim, left, and Tahima Hashim.

As the Journal-World has reported, Kansas football doesn’t need to use local vendors to cater its meals as much anymore, because the program is now able to prepare food in-house at its “performance dining” location, which is sort of like a sit-down restaurant for the players. But sometimes the team still orders out, and this year they tried out Shawarma Press, which opened in 2025.

Hashim said the coaches didn’t just call her up and ask her, however – she invited them first.

Last spring, she asked the team’s nutritionist and another member of the coaching staff to try the food. She said Mediterranean restaurants don’t always offer grab-and-go food like hers does, and that’s what the busy team would probably be looking for.

“They came and tried the food out, and they were like, ‘Oh, this is amazing! When the season starts, we’ll reach out to you and get an order going.’

“… I feel like that’s how most things happen in life,” Hashim said. “You need someone to take a step, and everyone gets hyped.”

photo by: Contributed

Boxes of teriyaki meals from Nagoya Japanese Cuisine are set out for KU football players.

There are 114 players listed on KU’s roster. An order that big is never really routine, but some restaurants that KU orders from year after year, like Nagoya Japanese Cuisine, have learned what to expect.

Nagoya’s Beirong Chen said KU football will place a roughly $2,200 order at least once a season, sometimes twice, with about a week’s notice. The order always looks the same – chicken, beef and shrimp teriyaki bento boxes, with extra carbs.

“They will order special, not like a regular order of hibachi,” Chen said. “They need less vegetables and extra rice. … (It’s) meat, rice and less broccoli, and two sides of yummy sauce.”

They’ll cut the meat up a day in advance, and then it takes about 1 1/2 hours to cook it all, with the staff working just on this. “It’s so fast, right?” Chen said.

photo by: Contributed

A chicken teriyaki dinner from Nagoya. The Kansas football team orders its dinners with double the rice and fewer vegetables.

At Shawarma Press, it took about four hours to prepare the team’s food, and it was a family effort. They had their two normal employees on staff, and they could still serve their walk-in customers, but Hashim’s sister and co-owner Tahima was also there, and their mom would stop by and help, too.

The players got extra carbs here, as well: sides of both rice and pita. “The most important nutritional value is protein and carbs, because they’re sweating so much and burning so many calories, and they have a lot of muscle they have to keep,” Hashim said.

Because Shawarma Press cooks its food right in front of the customers, everyone who came in could see this feast being prepared.

“We have a really strong and loyal customer base,” Hashim said. “So, they were all intrigued. They were like, ‘Oh, what are you guys working on?'”

Football season isn’t the only time restaurants get big orders from KU, of course. Chen said Nagoya has about five major catering orders from KU in a typical year, including from the KU baseball team.

And Hashim has had catering orders from student organizations, like the KU Engineering Club, which ordered food for 100 for a social – the second-biggest order Shawarma Press has filled. The biggest, of course, is the football team’s.

Hashim herself is a KU alumna, and her sister is a student at KU right now, so feeding students on the Hill is special to her.

“It was a lot of fun,” she said.

photo by: Sylas May/Journal-World

Cooks work during the dinner shift at Nagoya Japanese Cuisine on Thursday, Sept. 3, 2026.