Recycling endosomes can be found near centrosomes, and there have been suggestions that the two may be linked. Here, the authors show that recycling endosome components are in intimate contact with mother centriole appendage proteins, with implications for membrane traffic. The authors developed an in vitro assay to assess whether endosomal components associate with membrane-free centrosomes. They found that RAB11•GTP, but not RAB11•GDP, bound to mother centrioles, and that this required the appendage protein cenexin. Furthermore, depletion and localization analysis supported a model in which the RAB11 GTPase-activating protein EVI5 is anchored to the mother centriole via the appendage protein centriolin. These appendage proteins were also important for normal endosomal recycling, suggesting that the structural association of the centrosome and the endosome has biological implications.