Small Lake City

A single question sits at the heart of this conversation: what do you send when someone you love is hurting and you can’t get on a plane? Marti, founder and CEO of Spoonful of Comfort, shares the true origin story behind her comfort food delivery brand, starting with the call every family dreads and the search for something more meaningful than flowers or candy. When she couldn’t find a chicken soup gift that felt personal, practical, and caring, she built it and poured her love and grief into the work. 

We talk through the real early...

Salt Lake City keeps getting compared to other Western cities, but the closer you look, the more the comparison breaks down. The mountains aren’t a weekend trip from here, they’re a backdrop you can touch, and that single detail changes how people visit, how they meet, and how the local economy grows.

We’re joined by Kaitlin Eskelsen, CEO of Visit Salt Lake, to talk about what destination marketing really looks like when it’s done at scale. We dig into the behind-the-scenes work of booking conventions at the Salt Palace, building a sports tourism engine t...

A downtown eyesore locals jokingly called “Sears Lake” is finally turning into something real, and that’s only the start of a packed week. We break down the long-awaited redevelopment of the former Sears site near 300 West and 400 South, where Intermountain Health is beginning environmental remediation ahead of a new hospital campus. After years of stalled potential, the cleanup alone feels like the first domino, and the location near TRAX, the Gateway, and the Granary District could change the gravity of that corridor.

Then we get into a genuine transit win: Frontrunner is slated for a major upgrad...

You can be fit, tough, and motivated and still get wrecked by a simple mistake like the wrong breakfast. We sit down with ultra runner and nutrition coach Jesse Rich to trace the real path from “I don’t like running” to finishing and competing in ultramarathons, including the hard-earned lessons that only show up when you’re deep into a 50K or staring down a 100-mile day.

Jesse breaks down the moment that changed everything: a brutal Speedgoat 50K where stomach issues turned a promising start into survival mode. That failure pushes him into formal nutrition educatio...

109 degrees. That’s not a hot day, that’s a line in the history books, and Salt Lake City just crossed it. We recap a week where Utah breaks its all-time heat record, watches foothill fires flare up under extreme conditions, and then gets hit with monsoonal storms that turn burn scars into fast-moving flood threats. If you’ve been feeling like the weather is getting sharper and less predictable, we talk through what happened, why it matters, and how record heat, wildfire, and flash flooding now stack on top of each other in a single season.\n\nWe also s...

A pink, flower-filled brunch cafe in Woods Cross sounds like it came from a mood board, but the real story starts with something way less glamorous: an 18-year-old handing out flyers and landing 27 house cleaning clients. Angie, the founder of Plated Dreams, walks us through the long road from early responsibility and nonstop work to building one of the most distinctive brunch experiences in Utah. If you care about small business, restaurant entrepreneurship, or creating spaces that pull people together, this conversation gets refreshingly real. 

We dig into the behind-the-scenes decisions most guests never see: why Utah r...

Pioneer Day week is almost here, and Salt Lake City is about to hit that uniquely Utah blend of tradition, chaos, and genuinely great summer energy. We’re one week out from July 24, so I’m laying out a clear game plan for the Days of 47 Parade downtown, the Days of 47 Rodeo nights at the fairpark, and the alternative tradition that keeps getting bigger every year: Pie and Beer Day. If you’re new to the city, consider this your cheat sheet for what’s happening, when to show up, and how to actually enjoy it without getting overwhelmed. 

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Detroit-style pizza doesn’t just travel well, it exposes weak restaurant habits fast. If the dough is off, if the timing slips, if the team phones it in, the whole thing falls apart. That’s why I wanted to sit down with Sean from Via 313 and talk about what happens when a sharp, specific food concept grows up and scales without losing the edge that made people care in the first place.

We get into the Via 313 origin story, starting with two brothers from the Detroit area, a trailer on 6th Street in Austin, and an opening nigh...

Utah summer can feel like two stories happening at once: the mountains and red rock are calling, while wildfires and heat keep raising the stakes. We start with a clear update on the state’s biggest blazes, including the Babylon Fire in San Juan County crossing 100,000 acres and becoming the largest active wildfire in the United States. I break down what “containment” really looks like on the ground, why conditions have been so brutal, and what the growing list of closures means for anyone planning time in Canyonlands, the Manti LaSal National Forest, or BLM areas near Indian Creek and Da...

A museum director who still gets asked “What’s your favorite dinosaur?” might sound like a dream job, but Jason Cryan’s story is more surprising than that. Jason leads the Natural History Museum of Utah in Salt Lake City, and his path runs from a Vermont childhood shaped by the outdoors, to tropical entomology, to building genetics labs and advocating for teams of scientists inside major natural history museums. The throughline is curiosity, and the willingness to change course when the “right” career ladder stops feeling right.

We talk about what makes NHMU a true science museum: two...

The biggest story in Utah right now is fire, and it’s changing how all of us should think about summer. We break down the latest on the Cottonwood Fire near Beaver, now stretching across an area that puts it in the conversation with the most significant wildfires in Utah history. You’ll hear the real-world impacts, from closures and evacuations to the early estimate of structures lost, plus why officials say this wasn’t a surprise after an exceptionally dry winter and low snowpack.

We also get into a moment that should be a statewide public servic...

A lot of people leave a high-demand religion and end up with either a scorched-earth break or a lifetime of quiet resentment. We wanted a third option, so we called up Eli: a gay, ex-LDS writer and lawyer who somehow keeps deep, loving ties with a still-practicing Mormon family while staying honest about why he left. The result is a Salt Lake City conversation about faith, identity, and what it takes to choose peace without pretending the past did not shape you.

We talk about coming out with intention, protecting your story from being “used” as an exam...

Smoke is hanging over the Salt Lake Valley, the mountains are barely visible, and it’s not just “summer haze.” We break down what’s behind Utah’s rough early wildfire season, which major fires are driving the worst of the air right now, and what Stage 1 fire restrictions actually mean for real life. If you’ve been wondering whether it’s safe to run outside, take your kids to the park, or hit the trails, we talk through how to use the Utah DEQ AQI, who needs to be extra cautious, and why this moment deserves more than a shrug.
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A lot of people see the highlight clip and assume the rest is luck. Tom Wallisch doesn’t. From lapping small hills outside Pittsburgh to becoming one of the defining names in modern freestyle skiing, Tom breaks down the unglamorous parts that made the glamorous moments possible: repetition, confidence built from community, and learning how to evolve when the sport evolves.

We talk about the early Newschoolers and YouTube era, when a one minute edit and a comment section could change your entire trajectory. Tom explains how style trends like the Park City tall tee wave weren’t ra...

Your costs in Salt Lake City are changing fast, and the numbers are finally on the table. We walk through the newly adopted Salt Lake City budget and translate it into what residents actually feel: a 12.5% increase to the city’s portion of property taxes, utility rate increases that can add more than $32 a month for a typical household, and the end of the discounted Hive transit pass. We also explain the argument City Hall is making about inflation, rising equipment costs, and why officials say the alternative would be layoffs or service cuts. 

Next, we head up...

S2, E18: Thieves Guild Cidery - Max Knudsen & Jordy Kirkman

A fantasy tavern where you can grab a tankard of cider, play a board game you’ve never seen before, and watch a Dungeons and Dragons campaign unfold at the next table sounds like a gimmick until you hear how Thieves Guild Cidery actually got built. We sit down with Max and Jordy to trace the real story behind one of the most distinctive Salt Lake City bars and why going all-in on “too nerdy” was the smartest business decision they made. 

We talk about growing...

A $145 million warehouse near the Salt Lake City airport was supposed to become an ICE “megacenter” holding thousands of people and now the story is shifting fast. We walk through the new joint lawsuit from Salt Lake City and Salt Lake County against DHS and ICE, why leaders say the process was “cloaked in secrecy,” and the detail that has everyone watching the property again: after a reported pause for review, semi-trailers start showing up in the back lot and they keep multiplying. If the plan is changing, is it truly a scale-back, or was that the strategy from day one...

A 40-hour scramble to Argentina with a dead computer and zero Spanish. A Japan train sprint with ski bags, closed ticket counters, and strangers translating “three stops” into pure stress. And back home in Utah, a kid getting towed into illegal jumps behind a Honda Civic because that is what ski culture looked like before everything was documented. This conversation with pro skier and ski builder Thayne Rich is a reminder that the highlight reel is never the whole story.

We start with Salt Lake City roots: growing up around Park City and Alta, learning fearlessness from olde...

A 16-year-old signs with a pro club, steps into an adult locker room, and says the people in charge never built basic protections around him. That’s the heart of the biggest Salt Lake City story we’re unpacking this week: a major Real Salt Lake lawsuit filed by former goalkeeper Jeffrey Duznup against RSL, Major League Soccer, and the U.S. Soccer Federation. We walk through the allegations, what’s being claimed about reporting and response, and why this isn’t just “sports drama” but a serious conversation about athlete safety, youth protection, and accountability in professional sports.

The...

A lot of people talk about “networking,” but we wanted to get honest about what actually holds a life together when things get hard: reciprocity, loyalty, and the people who show up when you have nothing to offer. We start with the awkward truth about perks and connections, then pull the thread into something bigger, how success can reveal who is really in your corner and why one-way relationships drain you fast.

Then Celeste joins us and tells the kind of story you do not forget. She grew up moving every six months with her belongings in a ga...

Utah’s leaders are telling all of us to conserve water, fix leaks, and rethink thirsty lawns, and they’re right to. But the same week Governor Spencer Cox declares a statewide drought emergency, he also publicly admits the Stratos data center rollout “was not that good,” a major reversal on a massive Box Elder County proposal tied to the Great Salt Lake. We sit with that contradiction and unpack what it means for democratic process, water rights, energy demand, and whether Utah is building a future that matches its climate reality.

From there, we head straight to Salt...

Once someone working for the LDS church and creating temple dresses became a voice for womens rights. Rosie Card, a Utah creator and writer whose path through Mormonism is about as classic as it gets: BYU, a mission, church work, and even running a temple dress company for nearly a decade. What makes her story hit is how clearly she names the tension so many people feel in Salt Lake City and beyond: we want community and tradition, but we also want women’s rights, LGBTQIA dignity, and room for nuance.

We get into the experiences that st...

A project pitched as “the future” is running straight through the most sensitive nerve in Utah: the Great Salt Lake. I break down the latest developments in the proposed O’Leary Digital data center campus in Hansel Valley, including the procedural twist that has people fired up. After thousands of formal protests, the developers withdrew a water-rights application, then immediately refiled under House Bill 60, a new Utah law that narrows what can be considered in water-rights protests. If you’ve been trying to follow the story, this is the part that makes the stakes feel more urgent, not less.

He built a life around skiing, then rebuilt his identity around a camera and now he’s rebuilding it again as a startup founder. Adam Barker joins us to talk about the real mechanics behind an “overnight success” in outdoor photography: the grit from team sports, the obsession that made him chase better skiers, and the unglamorous work of planning shots, directing athletes, and executing when conditions and daylight don’t wait. If you’re into action sports, active lifestyle photography, or the creative craft behind iconic ski images, you’ll hear what most people miss about how those photos get m...

The Utah Jazz just got the kind of lottery luck that should feel like a party, and somehow it still stings. We break down what it means to jump to the No. 2 overall pick in the 2026 NBA Draft, why losing out on BYU star AJ DeBanza hits a nerve across the state, and what the next few weeks could look like as the trade-up question hangs in the air. I also look at the roster context and why a top-two addition could finally make the rebuild feel concrete.

From there, we shift to a headline Salt Lake...

Homelessness in Salt Lake City gets treated like a debate, but on the street and inside shelters it’s a web of housing costs, addiction, trauma, mental health, and the gaps between systems. We sit down with AJ and Dan from Volunteers of America Utah, a 40 year nonprofit that works right at those intersections, to talk about what actually helps and what gets in the way.

We unpack how VOA Utah operates far beyond “just volunteering” through paid frontline staff, therapists, social workers, and thousands of community volunteers who power meal service, mentorship, and pro bono support. Dan sh...

A single vote in Box Elder County just set off one of the biggest Utah fights in years: a proposed mega data center campus on the northern edge of the Great Salt Lake, backed by O’Leary Digital and shepherded by MIDA. The numbers are staggering, from the sheer land footprint to an on-site natural gas plant proposed at up to 9 gigawatts, more than double Utah’s current electricity use. That’s why scientists and environmental advocates are raising the alarm about carbon emissions, water draw, and the lack of independent environmental review at a moment when the Great Salt L...

Tyler Glenn (Neon Trees) has lived a version of the Utah story a lot of people only whisper about: growing up Mormon, feeling out of place, and using music as the safest room in the house. We talk about what it’s like to build an identity when your faith, your family culture, and your sexuality all pull in different directions, and why “fitting in” can feel like disappearing. 

We also rewind the Neon Trees timeline the way it actually happened: busking and garage practice, writing songs on a mission with whatever gear was available, then moving to Prov...

Salt Lake City is moving fast and the headlines prove it. One week we’re celebrating a first-ever NHL playoff win on Utah ice, and the next we’re asking bigger questions about what kind of city we’re becoming and who gets to shape it.

We start with a quick nod to the latest conversation with Guy and Debbie Perry of Salt Lake Running Company, because building community in Utah often starts with shared hobbies like road running and trail running. Then we jump into the week’s biggest news: the Utah Mammoth making history and why it s...

You can buy running shoes anywhere, but you can’t buy real guidance, community, and confidence from a dropdown menu.

We’re joined by the people behind Salt Lake Running Company, a Salt Lake City run specialty store that’s spent decades proving a simple point: service still wins. We talk about what it’s like to “wake up and go to work” for 30 years, why focus matters when everyone tells you your niche won’t work, and how a local business becomes a beacon for newcomers who want to run, hike, walk, or train for their first half mar...

Utah can feel like it’s changing by the hour, and this Tuesday update is a quick tour through the stories that reveal what’s really behind that momentum. We start with the AI shift that’s changing how people search for answers and how businesses get discovered, then move straight into the bigger theme I can’t stop noticing: growth that comes with real friction. When Utah talks about becoming a major data center hub, it’s not just a tech story. It’s a water story. It’s an energy story. It’s a question about what an arid place ca...

Google trained all of us to hunt through links. AI is training your customers to ask one question and take one recommendation. That shift is already changing who gets the call, who gets the booking, and who gets ignored even with a beautiful website.

We sit down with Dustin, founder of Found For AI, to unpack what “AI search optimization” actually looks like on the ground for local businesses and service providers. He explains how he stumbled into a surprising growth signal: people were finding his company through ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini referrals after he added an AI v...

Salt Lake City can feel calm right up until it suddenly is not, and this Tuesday update is proof. We bounce from serious stakes to absurd little moments without losing the thread: what’s happening in town, why it matters, and what it says about the kind of community we’re building.

We start with the Great Salt Lake, where the Miller, Marriott, and Magalit families just committed $30 million toward restoration. It’s a massive gesture, and it also raises the real question: what does it take beyond big checks to keep the lake recoverable and avoid toxic...

Shakespeare is supposed to be electric, so why does it so often feel like homework? We start there, swapping stories about live theater, the Utah Shakespeare Festival, and why great acting can beat big sets every time. Then the conversation takes a hard left in the best way: I hand the mic to Tyson and let him interview me about the parts of my story that listeners keep asking for.

We talk about growing up in Salt Lake City, bouncing between friend groups, and how rollerblading and a family divorce shaped the “rebel without a cause” energy that...

A drying lake can feel like a distant problem until it starts changing where families imagine their future. This Tuesday update connects the latest Great Salt Lake developments to the real-life stakes people talk about at the dinner table: air quality, dust, long-term health risks, and the question of whether Utah still feels like a safe place to raise kids.

We get into a new deal that puts more conserved water back into the Great Salt Lake and why incremental wins might matter more than they look on paper. Then we talk about the big, messy politics...

A warehouse on Salt Lake’s west side could soon hold the population of a small city, and local leaders may have almost no power to slow it down. That’s where we start this Tuesday update, because the proposed ICE mega center isn’t just another headline, it’s a test of who gets a say in Salt Lake City’s future and what tools the city can actually use when federal decisions land in our backyard.

From there we move through the stories Salt Lakers are already arguing about at dinner tables and in group chats: Uta...

You’ve probably seen it too: hydration powders with massive sodium, “greens” packed with mystery blends, and ads that imply you need three different supplements before lunch. We sit down with Shannon O’Grady, CEO of Gnarly Nutrition and a PhD-trained nutrition scientist, to get a straight answer on what actually works in sports nutrition and what’s mostly just expensive storytelling.

We dig into the current electrolyte craze, why most people don’t need daily electrolytes for a normal workout, and how to think about sodium without getting swept up by trends. Shannon breaks down creatine as one of th...

A bachelorette season vanishes three days before it airs. A Utah murder case ends with a fast jury decision. People are reportedly seen in handcuffs at the Salt Lake City airport. If you felt like Utah hit the national feed on every app at once, you’re not imagining it, and we sort through what actually happened and why it matters.

We start with the Kouri Richins verdict, a major Utah court story that has pulled in true-crime attention far beyond the state. We talk through what the jury decided, what comes next with sentencing, and why th...

A neon green building with purple doors shouldn’t feel terrifying, but for years Salt Lake City drivers couldn’t shake the same question: why does a “working daycare” look abandoned, silent, and sealed off from the world? Fun Time Kidz Kare at 1248 South 300 East became a piece of modern Utah folklore because locals claimed they never saw a single child walk through its doors. That one observation was enough to turn a commute time curiosity into a viral internet mystery.

We follow the moment the story catches fire on Reddit in 2015, then spreads into a full scale on...

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