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Remember When, Chattanooga? Fast food arrived at UTC

Staff file photo / Students line up at the Subway inside the student center at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in 2000. Previously, UTC outsourced its food service for some branded restaurants.
Staff file photo / Students line up at the Subway inside the student center at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in 2000. Previously, UTC outsourced its food service for some branded restaurants. Staff file photo / Students line up at the Subway inside the student center at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in 2000. Previously, UTC outsourced its food service for some branded restaurants.

By Mark Kennedy 2 min read

A generation ago, branded fast-food options were a new wrinkle at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.

And the tyranny of cafeteria food began to fade.

These days, fast-food food courts are standard fare on most college campuses, but when the accompanying photo was made in September 2000, the Subway sandwich shop on the UTC campus was still a novelty.

(READ MORE: UTC to become a higher-tier research university)

An article in the Chattanooga Times Free Press that month noted that Subway, Chick-fil-A and Pizza Hut were available at UTC under a contract with Sodexo Marriott Services, the university’s outsourced food services vendor.