MONEY

Alligator eatin' is big business in Knoxville as Vols prepare to face Florida

Jim Gaines
Knoxville

It may not help the Vols on the field, or maybe it will, but University of Tennessee fans do their best to vicariously influence the outcome of the UT-Florida football game: beating the Gators by eating the 'gators.

As the game approaches – this year’s is the afternoon of Saturday, Sept. 16, at the University of Florida in Gainesville – alligator meat consumption spikes in East Tennessee.

Frozen alligator products are sold at The Shrimp Dock on Kingston Pike in Knoxville, Tennessee on Tuesday, September 5, 2017. Shrimp Dock has sold alligator for nine years and sells more gator three days before the UT-Florida football game than any other time of the year. In 2014 the shop sold nearly one ton of gator.

Florida Gator Hater Week begins

During Gator Hater Week, Bayou Bay Seafood House at 7117 Chapman Highway sees a 25 to 30 percent increase in business, driven largely by alligator, owner Andy Cantillo said. That makes it one of the restaurant’s top five weeks of the year.

“We probably serve 40 pounds a week on average,” he said. When fewer places sold gator, Bayou Bay used to go through 300 to 400 pounds, Cantillo said.

Cantillo has served alligator since Bayou Bay opened April 1, 1992, he said.

“We serve it all year long,” Cantillo said. “That first Florida Gator Week we served it.”

For the first five or six years he was probably the only one who had it, he said.

"I grew up in south Louisiana, so this is my heritage," Cantillo said. His wife, Cindy, was from the Knoxville area, so when they moved here, they opened a restaurant based on what Cantillo knew. Now it’s a source of pride when customers from Louisiana say his alligator is the best they’ve eaten, he said.

The best year of alligator meat sales for the Shrimp Dock at 5210 Kingston Pike was 2014, when the Vols were 3-0 going into the Florida game, Shrimp Dock owner Phil Dangel said.

"We sold almost 2,000 pounds. Almost a ton,” he said. This year Dangel still expects to move 1,500 pounds, with much of that on game day.

Owner Andy Cantillo prepares gator meat to be grilled and deepfried at Bayou Bay along Chapman Highway in Knoxville, Tennessee on Tuesday, September 5, 2017. Bayou Bay, which has been cooking up gator since 1992, cooks around 30 pounds of alligator per week, but before the UT-Florida football game the restaurant makes around 250 pounds per week.

"It's the single busiest day of the year transaction-wise,” he said.

The Shrimp Dock, a seafood market with a small dine-in area, sells a frozen gator filet, pork/gator andouille sausage, gator gumbo (special for Gator Week), and freshly cooked gator. Dangel also plans to run a gator po-boy sandwich special for Gator Week.

So, does it taste like chicken?

"Best way to cook it is fry it," he said.

What’s it taste like?

“Chicken McNuggets is the answer,” Dangel said. Alligator is a white meat, but chewier than chicken. The Shrimp Dock’s house batter, which adds some spice, is what makes the place’s gator bites special, he said.

The "Gator Bites" food basket features sides like coleslaw and corn at The Shrimp Dock on Kingston Pike in Knoxville. Shrimp Dock has sold alligator for years and sells more gator three days before the UT-Florida football game than any other time of the year. In 2014 the shop sold nearly 1 ton of gator.

As part of the Gator Hater event for the Love Kitchen, at noon Thursday the Shrimp Dock will have a “fry the gator” lunch at all three of its locations, Dangel said.

The Thursday before the game he’ll have a smoker going in front of the Kingston Pike location.

"We're going to have four whole gators that we're going to smoke," Dangel said.

At the Shrimp Dock, fresh gator goes for $16.99 a pound.

"We've held that price now for the last five or six years,” Dangel said, supporting his words with a cut-out ad from 2014.

The Shrimp Dock’s alligator comes from Florida and Louisiana; it’s usually frozen, but during the busy days before the Florida game it arrives fresh, he said.

"We've had gator ever since I owned the place," Dangel said. “We sell more in the three days before the game than we sell the rest of the year. We like to think that we are the gator headquarters for town.”

Bayou Bay serves alligator as an appetizer, a meal, or on a salad; it comes fried, grilled or blackened.

“For the Florida Gator Week, we'll sell it by the pound,” Cantillo said. A pound, about 25 pieces, is $19.99.

Some people are scared to try alligator, but most like it when they do, he said. Many sample it as an appetizer.

The alligator-harvesting season lasts about 30 days, Cantillo said. He used to buy meat in person from Florida, some wild, some farmed; but now he buys it frozen from a regular source.

"My meat comes from a seafood supplier, US Food Service," Cantillo said.

Louisiana farm uses 'every bit' of the gator

One source for alligator meat is Kliebert Alligator Tours, a gator farm and attraction in Hammond, Louisiana. Owner Mike Kliebert said his grandfather was the first to breed captive alligators in the U.S., and the park’s oldest animals just turned 60.

They used to raise 7,000 a year for sale, but now most of the meat Kliebert sells comes from wild alligators they hunt in the swamps, he said. Now that’s only about 200 to 250 per year.

Some of his gator meat may end up in East Tennessee via distributors, but most he sells direct to restaurants in Mississippi and elsewhere in Louisiana, Kliebert said.

“We used to sell a little meat here and there to Andy (Cantillo),” he said.

Every bit of the animal gets used, Kliebert said: the hides become custom leatherwork, the heads are preserved as souvenirs, the feet become backscratchers, the teeth and scales turn into jewelry, its natural oils are used in skin products, China buys the intestines, and the hearts are sent to colleges as biology specimens.

Grilled, blackened and deep fried gator are presented on a table spread at Bayou Bay along Chapman Highway in Knoxville, Tennessee on Tuesday, September 5, 2017. Bayou Bay, which has been cooking up gator since 1992, cooks around 30 pounds of alligator per week, but before the UT-Florida football game the restaurant makes around 250 pounds per week.

“We process everything here on site,” he said.

The meat sells in two-pound packs, or 10- and 50-pound boxes, Kliebert said.

Most of a gator’s meat is in its tail, but the jaw muscles are the most tender, Cantillo said. There is also a little meat on the legs and ribs, he said.

Cantillo said he still catches and releases small alligators when he goes back to see family in Louisiana.

"We water-ski during the day and catch alligators at night in the same river," he said.

Alligators were on the Endangered Species List from 1973 to 1987 due to poaching, but they rebounded fast, Kliebert said. Now meat is harvested in September because mature females laid eggs two months earlier, he said; during the hunting season, those females are by their nests, so they aren’t touched. The only ones hunted are males, or females not old enough to breed, Kliebert said.

“We’re not just hunters. Conservation comes first,” he said.

University of Florida football games do give Kliebert a surge of business, but it’s not just Tennessee chowing down. The same thing happens when Florida plays LSU, and he sells whole gators to tailgaters at Mississippi State University, he said.

Some East Tennesseans will buy gator the week after the Florida game, Cantillo said. Volunteer fans will be “either celebrating or getting some revenge by eating alligator. Hopefully they'll be celebrating,” he said.