Editor’s note: In an effort to support local businesses that are being threatened by the devastating effects of the coronavirus, The Athletic is publishing an ongoing series of stories to highlight our treasured communities. #supportlocal. This story originally was published as part of The Athletic’s Sept. 2019 buffet of stories on food and college football, The Spread.

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — A couple miles away from Beaver Stadium and across town from the bars lining College and Beaver Avenue, the groundwork for Penn State’s 2016 Big Ten title run started in a restaurant.

In corner booths and around wooden tables, near the restaurant’s massive fireplace and among the antiques scattered about, James Franklin dined with many of Penn State’s football players one-on-one shortly after The Field opened its doors in 2016.

The head coach needed to unite a roster that had gone through back-to-back 7-6 seasons during Franklin’s first two years at Penn State. The challenges went beyond recovering from NCAA sanctions and what felt like a revolving door of coaches. The team’s leaders and Franklin needed to lay it all out on the table and dine through their differences.

“I had four position coaches in five years, so I didn’t really trust too many people,” said former Nittany Lions safety Malik Golden. Golden was the last player recruited by Joe Paterno and played for Bill O’Brien and Franklin.

“At that dinner with Coach Franklin, we kind of sat down and had a heart-to-heart,” Golden continued. “We talked about his situation and talked about things that were going on in my life and tried to just talk about what needs to happen between me being a leader and him being a head coach, about what we need to do together to kind of spring what they’re doing right now and become a powerhouse.”

The head coach needed to unite a roster that was comprised of players who now openly discuss the trust issues that had to be worked through behind closed doors. There were walls that needed to be broken down after they were put up and hardened by some of the team’s upperclassmen. Burgers and fries couldn’t hurt Franklin’s cause as he tried to get the buy-in needed to unite the team.

That spring, he identified 40 players to dine with. He let them pick a restaurant, and they’d eat together individually in the months ahead of the 2016 season. Franklin outlined in his August 2017 piece for The Players’ Tribune that many of the players selected the same restaurant, The Field.

The Field offered welcoming surroundings for Franklin to meet with his players when it opened in 2016. (Linsey Fagan for The Athletic)

“Whenever you can break bread with people, I think it’s important,” Franklin said this month. “Being able to go out with guys one-on-one and sit down and have a meal and talk and get to know them better and listen to their questions and listen to their concerns and hear them and give them feedback, I think it’s important. Sometimes as a head coach, you’re running in 1,000 different directions and you don’t get that type of interaction and the type of time with the individuals on the team that you really want to.”

Both the restaurant’s popularity and Penn State football’s on-field success skyrocketed in the following months.

“We never thought it’d go crazy like this,” said Stefan Cherinka, the general manager of Toftrees Golf Resort, “because how many times do you go to a hotel restaurant to eat?”

Inside the rustic main room, hamburgers featuring the restaurant’s name branded on the bun — truly an Instagram-ready shot for the college crowd — meet a selection of mouthwatering milkshakes, like the popular salted caramel pretzel shake, and buckets of French fries that are poured out on the table. The Field has grown in popularity both among locals and the Penn State football staff since it opened.

Penn State’ relationship with The Field didn’t stop with Franklin dining there with players ahead of a run to the Big Ten championship and the Rose Bowl. The restaurant has become a popular spot for recruiting visits and even delivers meals to the Lasch football building.

The connection has grown so strong that Franklin now has an item on the menu that he taste-tested and hand-selected, a turkey burger called “The Coach Franklin.”

Franklin’s ascension to his own menu item dates back to those invaluable dinners here that happened three nights per week leading up to the 2016 season. It wasn’t unusual for the players to dine one-on-one with their position coach or together with teammates, but a meal with Franklin was new territory for some.

When Golden and Franklin went to The Field, the fries weren’t the only thing that were laid out during a dinner that the safety recalls spanning nearly two hours. He wasn’t the only one who now recognizes the value of what transpired during a dinner with the head coach.

“There were a lot of trust issues,” said linebacker Brandon Bell, a captain on the 2016 team. Bell was recruited by O’Brien. “There had been three different coaches, three different philosophies, so there was definitely a little aspect of that that was hindering us those first two years because some guys just weren’t necessarily buying in. … Getting everybody on the same page really made the difference.”

An invitation to dinner with the head coach was a sign that Franklin expected a player to be in a leadership role. With that role came added responsibility. Franklin needed the leaders to set the tone. The dinners helped remind the players that regardless of where they ate, Franklin cared about them and valued their input. They may not all remember what they ate, but even now they do remember that he asked about their families and their school work, in a way making up for conversations that, for some, didn’t happen with Franklin during their recruitments before he arrived.

“It was kind of just like a respect thing,” said former linebacker Jason Cabinda. “I knew the reason I was being called for dinner was because he had a high respect for me and my position on the team and how he felt my voice impacted the team. … He wanted me to kind of be an extension of him, in the locker room, an extension of the coaching staff and how they wanted things done.”

Executive chef Bradley Hansen works on Franklin’s namesake burger. (Linsey Fagan for The Athletic)

The dinners showed the team’s leaders that once they were all on the same page, Franklin was willing to let them seize more control of the team. He’d be less uptight than he was the first two seasons, learning to micromanage less. He’d still keep an open-door policy as the players worked to hold each other accountable and meet with the team’s leadership council on a regular basis. The leaders responded.

When the players were correcting one another during practice and stopping summer workouts to make sure everyone touched the line and did the extra rep that was required of them, it was clear that the team had changed.

The recipe worked nearly to perfection eight months later, as Golden and Franklin grinned standing next to one another during the Big Ten title game trophy presentation at Lucas Oil Stadium. Even now, three years later, as Franklin checks in from time to time with his former player, Golden still remembers their dinner at The Field.

“It was a catalyst to us playing better,” Golden said.

Following Franklin’s 2016 dining frenzy at The Field, executive chef Bradley Hansen wanted to give the head coach a burger that Franklin would have some say in. Franklin had been looking for the healthiest burger possible during his visits, and the wheels started turning as Hansen concocted three turkey burgers for the head coach to taste test.

Winning a Big Ten title certainly has its perks.

Having the head coach’s selected creation on the fall menu was good for everyone. Hansen wanted the turkey burger to be special, even creating a beer cheese in which the beer came from Neshaminy Creek Brewing Company — an homage to Franklin’s roots growing up in Pennsylvania, where he attended Neshaminy High School.

Franklin told them he wanted something “somewhat healthy,” and he taste-tested the three burgers one evening as recruits looked on. He chose a turkey burger on a whole grain roll, topped with arugula, tomato, olive tapenade and goat cheese. Don’t look for the whole grain roll to include the restaurant’s signature branded bun, though, as the funky taste resulting from the branding hitting the grains was quickly ruled out.

“That was like the healthiest one, so that’s how that one won out,” Franklin said with a laugh.

Hansen wasn’t exactly star-struck, but the 2005 graduate of State College Area High School, located three miles from Beaver Stadium, understands the responsibility that comes with cooking for Penn State football’s head coach. Hansen grew up as a fan of his hometown Nittany Lions, all the way down to the signed Penn State player posters that were part of his childhood. Many of the former football coaches’ kids went to the same schools as him, and he knows everything around here revolves around fall Saturdays in Beaver Stadium.

The more Franklin came in with players and recruits, the more normal it became for the executive chef to prepare all the orders.

“The Coach Franklin” burger at The Field (Linsey Fagan for The Athletic)

“He probably has to eat at events like this all the time, so if you’re eating that many times per day, it probably has to be semi-healthy,” Hansen said. “Especially if he’s gonna come here all the time. You can’t eat a burger and fries every meal.”

The Field even opened a private room down the hall from to the main dining area. The Field Alcove is built for private events, but it also gives the head coach a place to take recruits or dine on his own. If Franklin doesn’t want to be in the spotlight signing autographs and posing for photos during dinners, he can go in and out mostly unseen. He doesn’t always opt for the side room, and not all recruits go in there, either.

“I think if they already won the deal, then they might eat in the main room,” said Cherinka as he walked through the side room, pointing out the TV in the corner and highlighting the same rustic interior and decorative wooden beams hanging from the ceiling, mirroring the restaurant’s décor. “I think if they’re still working on them, then they might be in here.”

The restaurant also added a lower-level patio that’s a bit secluded from the main dining room and the traditional outdoor seating. They enhanced it with lights, Cherinka said, per Penn State football’s urging.

Apparently nothing helps strengthen a team or sell parents and players quite like a burger and a relaxing atmosphere overlooking a manicured golf course.

“They were here with two giants (on a recent Friday),” Cherinka said. “They probably ate three burgers.”

Inside these walls, there have been countless conversations shared between highly touted recruits who have passed through during visits. Penn State has the plan nailed down, with recruiting staffers calling ahead to order the standard assortment of appetizers, like wings and buffalo chicken dip, so there’s something already on the table when the prospects arrive. There can’t be any waiting, no detail left unorganized, as Penn State makes its best recruiting pitch.

For as predictable as the orders can sometimes be, especially for the private recruiting events, there’s no telling when Saquon Barkley might be back in town and drop by like he used to do after games or when Franklin might be feeling upbeat enough to dine with regular customers. They might even break out in “We Are …” cheers when he does.

The resort’s banquet space is between the kitchen, private room and main restaurant, meaning it has hosted countless Penn State-style weddings. At least one included an unsuspecting bride and groom who just so happened to have Franklin, dining next door, make a surprise appearance at their wedding reception.

Anything is fair game when you’ve dined at the restaurant as many times as Franklin has.

“We came out and he was on the dance floor and the wedding was going on,” Cherinka said. “He was on the dance floor with the bride and groom, crashed the wedding. It was neat. … He was just in the mood that night, having a blast with the people in the restaurant, taking pictures. It just went really, really well.”

(Top photo: Tom Pennington / Getty Images)