Ever Onward Podcast

What AI Can’t Replace: Creativity, Hospitality & Human Connection with John Drake & Kris Komori | Ever Onward - Ep. 127

• Ahlquist. • Season 1 • Episode 127

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As AI rapidly transforms the way we work, create, and communicate, what remains uniquely human?

In this episode of Ever Onward, Tommy Ahlquist sits down with John Drake, President of Drake Cooper, and James Beard Award-winning chef Kris Komori, co-owner of KIN and Art Haus Bar, for a conversation about creativity, branding, hospitality, and the human experiences technology can’t replace.

Together, they explore why creativity is becoming one of the most valuable skills in the modern workplace, how great brands are built through authenticity and attention to detail, and why meaningful experiences continue to matter in an increasingly automated world.

John shares lessons from 30 years in advertising and branding, while Kris offers a unique perspective on culinary creativity, hospitality, and creating unforgettable moments through food. The discussion also touches on AI, entrepreneurship, resilience, criticism, curiosity, and the importance of human connection in both business and life.

Whether you’re a business owner, creative professional, entrepreneur, or simply someone interested in where our world is headed, this episode offers valuable insights into what it means to stay creative, authentic, and human.

In this episode:
• Why creativity is becoming a critical skill in the age of AI
• The intersection of art, business, and commerce
• How great brands are built and remembered
• Hospitality as a form of human connection
• The role of curiosity in fueling creativity
• Learning through failure and creative risk-taking
• Building experiences people can’t get anywhere else
• Why authenticity matters more than ever

Guest Links:

John Drake & Drake Cooper: https://www.drakecooper.com

Kris Komori & KIN: https://www.kinboise.com

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who believes creativity and human connection still matter.

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Why Creativity Matters Now

SPEAKER_03

For the next two episodes, I'm really excited to have John Drake. He is the president of Drake Cooper, 30-year history of being in the ad industry, just a really smart guy. I'm excited to have him on to talk about creativity and business branding. We're going to bring out a couple of guests that are in business but art related. Our first guest will be Chris Kumari, who's the chef and owner of Kin and ArtHot's bar. He's a great guy, and we'll talk about culinary art and um and creativity within that. And then we'll have Mae Myers, who is uh with Pivot North Architecture, to talk about architecture and creativity within that. Um creativity um as we uh go down the road of AI, as we start seeing our word world even more automated, um I think the individual uh creativity of those workers and the people that really figure out how to use AI but but keep the human element in are going to thrive. Um according to a study conducted by Forbes of 11.3 million employees, more than 70% of companies surveyed consider creative thinking and analytical thinking to be the skill most expected to rise in importance from 23 to 27. This is going to be the thing that sets people apart is creativity. It's going to be great to have uh John on with us and to talk about creativity in the workplace and ways to stimulate uh that creativity and make uh for better workplaces and environments. Um thank you so much for listening uh to our podcast. If you uh have a chance, please like, share, or give us a review. Um our topic again is creativity with John Drake.

Meet Chef Chris And Kin

SPEAKER_03

I've already done your intro, so John and Chris, thanks. Thanks for coming on. This will be fun.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_03

Uh oftentimes I have people on that I know really, really, really well, probably too well, and and I just mean you guys. So this will be this will be fun. So thanks for coming on. Our topic is creativity and business and all things that. And John, look forward to this.

SPEAKER_02

Likewise, happy to be. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Let's start with uh you guys just tell us a little bit about yourselves and then we'll we'll get into this. Chris, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01

Sure. Uh so my name is Chris Kamori. I am uh chef and co-owner of King, an art house bar. That's downtown Boise in the One Capital Center. Uh, we've been open about six years, we'll say. We tried to get we actually got occupancy of our space the day before all the restaurants got shut down during COVID. So we don't have good timing there, Chris. No kidding. So we don't really know what like the anniversary date of the place is, but we've been we've been up and running for a little bit now. Um the bar is kind of a la carte walk-in. We have burgers, we make noodles in-house and stuff like that. It's all scratch, local, seasonal farms. Um, the Kin side is a tasting menu uh restaurant, so we do seven to nine courses, changes every few weeks. It's always has a theme around it. Currently, it's like a local artist that has her art in the uh on the walls. Um, but yeah, I mean we're just kind of chugging along. We did get some, we've gotten some accolades down the road. I don't like talking about it too much, but it always comes. Just bring it up right now, but bring it up right now. It's a big time accolades. Yeah, no, it was it was great. It was great for the whole the whole state. It's kind of reverberated out. But so the James Beard Foundation, um, they give uh annual awards out regionally as well as nationally. Um and we won in 2023 for the best chef of the mountain region. Um and we were the first ones in the state to get that. And since then it's actually been great. Uh Sal Adamano's gotten one, and every year more Boise restaurants and bars kind of get this national spotlight. So we're it's nice to be able to share it a little bit, and it's a rising tide sort of thing. So fantastic. John?

Meet John And Drake Cooper

SPEAKER_02

Uh Drake Cooper is the agency, president of Drake Cooper. Um, we have 80 full-time people, uh, one of the largest ad agencies in the Pacific Northwest, um, and probably the largest employee-owned, 100% employee-owned agency in the West. Um, and we get hired by clients to do ad campaigns, logo designs, websites, the the whole thing. So um and we were a recent ad age small agency of the year, which was fun for us coming out of Boise. So it's been a nice run. So awesome, awesome.

SPEAKER_03

Well, we wanted to, we wanted John wanted to we wanted to get on and talk about the world is changing, the valley is changing. I mean, think of uh think of just even 10 years. I mean, you just go back 10 years and what's happened, and then you look at projections, and that's pre-mic micron, like uh $50 billion coming in there, 250 companies coming in after them, uh, just to help with their supply chain. Um, this is gonna, you know, and I I laugh because people say, oh, we hate growth, it's gonna stop, but it's not stopping. I mean, you look at communities where this has happened and it's just it's just raring and going. And then on top of that, you take, I like I go down too many rabbit holes on the whole AI thing and what's gonna happen with the future of work and the future of how we socialize and everything we do. I can't wait to hear you guys' thoughts on all this. But as it changes, I think that the point of today is is I think human creativity, human element, the human part of art, and you know the way you do your culinary art and the way all this thing goes together, I think is going to be more important. And my I gotta believe that. I I gotta believe my heart, that's gonna be even more important as we change. But I'd love to start that conversation and and hear you guys' thoughts.

Creative Commerce Needs Constraints

SPEAKER_02

Well, one of the one of the things that we each we share in our lines of work is um I believe that for for ourselves, we we work in what I call creative commerce. Yeah, so it's like it's creative, but we're still doing business. We're on the business side of stuff. And that brings in a lot of really interesting constraints for us. Because if we were just doing art, we could have all we could do whatever we wanted, really. We're only limited by our imagination. But we're not. We're constrained by budgets, we're constrained by timelines, we're constrained by what the audience will have. So it puts some really interesting parameters around what we're able to do creatively. And I think that's a really fun space to be in. It really puts pressure on creativity to do something interesting in in a cool way. So you probably see this.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Yeah, no, totally. I mean, like, you know, restaurants, uh, there's a wide gamut of places, right? There's like from fast food or just like grocery store food, commodity like fast convenient stuff to what we do. Um, you know, we're a a very niche thing, and we we understand that, you know, we're not a scalable model necessarily. We are very much like hands-on, and that's that's the beautiful part of kind of what we do. We're still preserving a craft of cooking, of butchering of these things, right? Um, we're very fortunate in the fact that then we do get to kind of expand the craft into art, yeah. Right, and to be creative. I would agree with you, constraints um within a creative sphere for us is very important, especially as the younger cooks and chefs start to develop, because if we don't put constraints on them, I mean they just spin out, right? Like there's too there's too many options. And so one way that we do that is very legit legitimately is just like what we can get from farms. So we're not like it's not super strict, you know, we get citrus, we get salt, not from around here. But if we can get something from a farm, we know it's coming up, we're like, hey, just wait, be patient, think about that, expand out on that, and then of course, uh yeah, budget, right? We're still business, so it's like, yeah, you have all these ideas of what you want to do, but food is hard to deal with because it's perishable. So it's not even just like it's a great idea, it's like, well, how are we gonna do that exactly?

SPEAKER_03

So yeah, here on you guys, I had a I had a friend, it's gosh, it's been time passed so quickly, like how to be like 16, 15, 16 years ago. Then his name was Caleb Chung. He was the guy that invented the Furby.

SPEAKER_00

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_03

Remember the Furby? Yeah, and this is the eyes that are like roaming around. Oh, yeah. And he made a ton of money on it. He was an inventor and he was an artist, and he grew up as a meme on the streets of LA and just incredible life. But he will used to always just go off on these soliloquies about the yin and the yang of business and art and and cultivating in people creativity and that part of your brain to make you super creative and appreciative of art and creating and what all that that fosters, but the other side of that being business. And in order to really be successful, you gotta have both of those. And and he always would just go and I mean it was awesome. I'd listen to him speak at different conferences, and he would go speak all over the country on this idea that hey, we we need both. Yeah. And um, if you're just too much of the art thing and you don't understand business, it's gonna be great. But but how do you make it? How do you thrive? And if you're too much of the business, you you will not be as successful if you don't understand and appreciate. So that's why this is such a beautiful topic. I've wanted to do it for a while, and then and then John brought it up, but but talk more about those, that concept uh within your world. You've hit it a little bit, but I mean you gotta you gotta survive in probably one of the hardest. I mean, I don't know what margins are. I opened a restaurant for like three. Well, we had, well, it's it goes back to Caleb actually. We we we I've done crazy things in my life, but we started at our own private school. It was an arts, it was it was called uh Arts West in Eagle, Idaho. It's a long, long, long story. Should have never done it, but we opened it up and it had some incredible, it it now became um uh it's now part of the the West Ada School District, and it's thriving. It went through a couple of different revisions, but during that time, um we needed a place. My kids all played jazz music and they were very accomplished. My son was a jazz guitarist, my daughter sang jazz music, and they needed a place to play. We couldn't find a place, so we opened a restaurant called the Blue Door right next to the campus, and we did it for like three years, and I'm I will never, Chris. It is so hard. Now, granted, I didn't know what I was doing. I was taking advice from people that didn't know what they were doing, and all we really wanted to do was create a place that the kids could go play jazz music, but it was so hard. And and through that experience, and then with my commercial real estate business, I mean, as you drive in any of our projects, most of them are restaurants, all the way from higher end to to medium end to grab and go. But it is, it is a it is a hard, it is a hard gig, man.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it it it definitely is. It's not uh there's there's different sides of it, right? Like uh, so uh there's not a ton of places in town yet. It's starting to build in terms of like it's a chef-owned thing. And uh that's there's still a huge learning curve. I'm learning not fly uh along with it, right? Because it's like I was in kitchens, um in hospitality in the front of house as well. I wasn't necessarily on the numbers side, on the business side, right? And I and I didn't necessarily have training within that. So, you know, like the balance, I'm it was at first it was a 99.1%, and I'm starting to starting to figure that out. But you know, it's a it is a really interesting thing that we can now we're very transparent with our staff and outwardly to our guests as well, to be like, hey, I mean, we are kind of new to this and we're figuring it out. But the communication to our staff is really important for us because it's like we go over our PLs, we go over these things over and over, right? Because they're they're young and they're new to it. And I wish that I had gotten that too, to be like, oh yeah, you're right, I'm not gonna do this. Are you kidding me? But you know, the balance of uh the the tight margins and the stresses of it, you know, it's it's a labor of love, right? And so when we balance that out, it's like, well, sure, we don't make a ton of money. We basically have created a business to give ourselves a job, right? But within that, we get to do something unique.

SPEAKER_03

Um so and your passion, something you love, something that's that that that in the culinary arts is is so unique and amazing. And I think I think ultimately that's what makes it makes the world go around, right? It's people doing their passions and figuring out how to make money doing it. Totally. And like but both but both those sites have to exist.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah, 100%. Well, and like I mentioned, we're not necessarily a scalable model because we are so curated and hands-on, but that's that's fine. We've made that decision, you know, and so now we're like, oh, well, we don't have to like we're not made to built to make gobs and gobs of money. We're built to create experiences that are very unique and fleeting and whatnot. And like as long as we can keep the business alive, can support our staff and our own families, then we're totally happy with that, you know. Love that.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and our our side of it is so we're hired by companies to do to do their creative work. So we have 25 different brands right now that we work on. So and all of them are different. So we have to understand the business of each of those in order to do anything that's effective. So a typical day in our agency, people will come together and work on one industry in the morning, a second industry late morning, a third industry in the afternoon, and then a final industry at the end of the day. And it's really interesting for creative people to have that range. Yeah. But each time we have to think about okay, is this a real estate brand? Is this a banking brand? Is this a consumer packaged goods brand? And each of those have different business things that need to happen with our work. So we're always calibrating, like what, okay, what needs to happen here? What why are we doing this? So that range is super cool, and and it's uh something that we really try to foster at the company where it's like you have to be creative, but then also that doesn't work for a bank or that doesn't work for a credit union. That might work for CPG. So it's a range and it's cool.

SPEAKER_03

That's awesome. Yeah.

What Branding Actually Means

SPEAKER_03

Uh can I ask you a follow-up on that? Because um you're kind of an expert on branding.

SPEAKER_02

Done it for a while, so I've seen it in a long time.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, talk about what a brand means to a business, um, uh how important it is. Just talk about the concept of branding. Because I it's been it's been something that um I I remember I was uh I went to a charity golf thing a few years ago and I walked in and this old guy grabbed me and he pulled me aside and he's like, and I never met him before. He's like, I want to talk to you about how your brand. And I'm like, what are you talking about? And he sat me down, he's like, I want to you, you've done a really nice job branding your companies over time, and I want to know how you've done it. And and honestly, I walked away from it thinking, I haven't been that thoughtful. Just haven't, you know, I've been kind of just like, I don't know. I'm I mean, I just I I and I think I'm getting we're getting better at it, I think. Um, but but but but what goes into creating a brand? And I and and I the the reason I'm getting better at it, you met my son-in-law when he came in. Yeah, um, his company has helped us, and when we had our latest transition from BVA, which we had built a really strong band over a very short period of time here in the valley, and when that ended abruptly, we're like, okay, what's next? And and I kind of locked myself in a room with him and said, Okay, let's figure out how to start this thing right, because you kind of don't get a second chance at branding.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

And you got to kind of get it right, but you're under the gun, right, too. So a lot of times for businesses, you don't have the luxury of spending too much time figuring this out. Yet you want it to be authentic, you want it to be real, you want it to meet who you are. It's a big process. Yeah. So I didn't know we were gonna get into it this early, but yeah, teach us.

SPEAKER_02

Uh well, I I don't know about teaching, but but what there's a couple things that that we do. And the and the first thing we say around the agency a lot, like making it pretty is easy, making it correct is hard. And what that means is like we can make stuff look great all day long, but if it doesn't reflect what the organization is, what the brand is, then it's not gonna it's not gonna work. So once we really understand that, then there's a couple things we need to do. Um, the first one is visibility. Are are you visible or are you not? And oftentimes the most visible brand is the successful one. Then it has to be distinctive. Like, do do I recognize it? Does it does it is it different from the other ones? Um it's gotta have meaning. There's a lot of meaning in Chris's brand. You know, it's like there's a lot of meaning that has to happen there, then it has to be valuable to people. Like what's what's the value? So when we create a brand, whether it's like designing, like we worked on the proud source water vessel early on, with that, that's a lot of that still carried forward, or whether it's uh it's uh those are the guys out of Mackey, right? Yeah, they are they were at the time, yeah. I'm not sure now, but but uh but so it's like with all of that, it's like you you're trying to put all that together and create something that and you give a client a range. And it's like this solution here accomplishes these things and it's really of you. But we're really looking for those things. And if we're if we're not distinctive, if it's not gonna be visible, if it's not, if it doesn't have meaning, then we're we're not done with our work. So we're looking to do all of that. And it varies depending on who the client is.

SPEAKER_03

When you go through that process, you you've got enough skip. How long have you been doing this?

SPEAKER_02

30 years. This is my 30th year in an attic straight.

SPEAKER_03

So 30 years doing this, and you're working with different businesses from restaurants to real estate.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

And and how much of it do you know what they need to do? And you gotta you gotta blend authentic, like what's genuine, what what resonates with their hearts, souls, and mind, but you also probably know 30 years into this what works and what doesn't work. How hard is it to walk that line? It it is how How often do you want to say stop? You can't do that. That's dumb. Like that's I'm just too honest. It would be hard for me to like walk through that process.

SPEAKER_02

There, there's a there's a um, okay, so my value in the room, what what do I bring it with 30 years of doing this? Like, why am I in the room? Um, my hope is I've just seen a lot. And so you've seen what works and what doesn't in in a career. Um a way to kind of think about it is like if we were to list the best music albums of all time, probably on the list would be Abbey Road from the Beatles. That would probably be on most people's list. And I think the way that I equate kind of how to do it is like you look at that, and there's a couple of interesting things on that album. There's there's a song called Come Together.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

And apparently that took a ton of work, like a lot of work in the studio, a lot of writing, a lot of instrumentation to make that great, and it is great. But you've also got Here Comes the Sun. And that was written in a couple of minutes, just walking around the backyard with a guitar, George Harrison, and then they put in the studio, they were done fast. And there's also a track on that album called Me and Mr. Mustard. And John Lennon was quoted as saying, that's me writing garbage. So here we have the best album of all time and three very different things on that. Each of them serve a purpose. The thing with like me and Mr. Mustard, it serves a purpose on the album because it connects two tracks together and it gives the total track list, which they needed. So to come back around, my job is to recognize when something hits the table, what do we have here? Is this something that there's an idea there, but it needs a lot more work to come together? Like, go work on that. Is that something that says, no, that's great, don't touch it, ship it, go to the client right now. That's amazing, go, here comes the sun. Or is that something where it's like that plays a role in what we're doing, but it's not going to get a lot of visibility, don't spend a ton of time on it, but we need to do it. You know, retargeting ads or something. Yeah. That's a mean mr. So all of that, my value in the room is re is trying to recognize.

SPEAKER_03

That's a really great analogy that you just did right there.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, well, thanks. I mean it's like awesome. Well, thank you.

SPEAKER_03

I mean, you should have some good stuff here, John, but that was great.

SPEAKER_02

Well, yeah. That's well, thanks. That's my value in the room, is like trying to recognize what what we got here. Yeah. And then hoping helping to go in that direction.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, that that is really that is a really cool analogy because that was almost like I say the same thing to our chefs. So in the tasting room and in the bar, uh our younger chefs get to create dishes. Uh, and it's difficult within a uh a tasting menu because there has to be flow. So when you have multiple minds working on separate dishes, there has to be a cohesiveness to it, right? And we talk a lot about again, we go back to pricing and things like that, costing. Um, but we talk about well, sometimes it a tasting menu is difficult also because guests don't have a choice. Uh, and everybody likes to have a choice when they go out to eat. And we know that it's a it's something that we gotta get over a hurdle. But um there's a trust in us, but sometimes there's the within the storyline, there's a dish that we're like, this is gonna be the challenging one. This is an interesting ingredient that maybe is going to be foreign to people, it's going to push them a little bit. So it will be the dish, and unfortunately, you have to develop this dish, is the one that some people might just have a couple bites and be like, not for me. You know, we want every dish to be delicious and heady and and impactful, but we also know there's gonna be a mean Mr. Mustard here and there that is connecting or setting up the next one, right? And we even talk about that in terms of price cost, food cost, right? You go to places and you see a lot of it's like all starch. Well, we're like, yeah, you know, you got to get enough filler in there, but you know, we also want to build value within the farm produce and things like that, which are expensive, right? So, but it's like, okay, we need that one dish that just like fills up a little bit so that we can have the other things that are a little bit lighter here in there. But that's a really good analogy that I'll definitely steal that one.

SPEAKER_03

That's yeah, that's so cool. That's great. Uh, talk about uh on the branding thing. So when you're going through these, uh let's say you're going to the you know the Abbey Road, um, the big the big deal. Oh really quick story because I think

Designing Details People Feel

SPEAKER_03

it's just hilarious. I tell this story all the time because I was at St. Luke's for a long time and got up into their leadership and really loved my time there. But I was there during the time they were going to rebrand St. Luke's. They'd had the same logo forever. They were gonna redo this thing, and then they they hired some national ad agency. They should have hired you, someone local, but they didn't. I can't remember. The guys were the really, you know, over the top kind of and I and you go to this series of meetings, and it took a year. They went out and did all the research. They did, you know, you you could probably talk through all the things that they were getting paid to do, but a lot. And then there was this big reveal. And I remember it was at their it was at the their main boardroom, and there was probably 12 of us around. And I remember going to it thinking, oh, this could be. Cool. I mean, it's been a year of waiting for this thing, right? And I remember they rolled it out. The logo changed very little. They simplified everything. They're like, we just need to go back to just St. Luke's. And I remember thinking it actually true, right? It all felt really good. But it was like, because it because over the years with St. Luke's, they'd had they went from just a hospital to then a system to then everything had its own taglines and lines underneath it. And if you if you remember that time, this was probably in around 05, 06, it just went simplified everything back to St. Luke's. The logo did change, it modernized a little bit, but not too much. But I remember thinking, these guys just got paid a lot of money to come back in and say, keep it simple, stupid, right? Anyway, I I I bring that up because uh it was the right thing, but um man, I I I the way you guys go about it is pretty cool.

SPEAKER_02

Well, thanks. I I I think a br it the way that we do it is the brand, the logo is one thing, but then it's all the other stuff around it that makes it great. Yeah, the little design elements that appear on a building or the the the way the things that might appear on the menu in the corners of the way that you do it. That's the yeah, that's the great stuff that people I think appreciate.

SPEAKER_03

There's kind of like that not one thing goes without like some thought. And I think when you when you go to a place that is thoughtful down to every little level and you notice it, you're like, oh, this this means something. Tell us about your you you mentioned your logo and your brand and your stuff. Talk about the development of that and what it meant to you. I think it's cool.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

I mean, it's it started with the name King. Um for the most part, we we all kind of left from a previous restaurant and there was a there was a large group of us, or I mean it was a small restaurant, but a large percentage of us went forward. Now there was like a sort of nomadic period where they had to go get other jobs and things like that. Um, and my business partner, Ramey, uh, and I sort of just started thinking about like, well, what is the impact in the community? Like he's a Boise native. Um, we cared about like, you know, it's like that family as a restaurant, but it goes beyond that. And so we were like, oh, Kin makes a ton of sense. And then uh unbeknownst to me, actually, my great-grandmother's name was Kinoco, so Kin. And so it was kind of like hidden in there. Uh, and then, you know, the the aesthetic, the design and everything that of that, of the restaurant space of a lot of the branding, um, it's actually a lot of it is my business partner. Like it kind of was all in his in his head a little bit, but it's like you said, it's all in the details, right? So, like the design is very specific, the menu is one thing, but then the service is is there's tons of little details of like, you know, fold a napkin when someone gets up, uh, gently slide a fork in there without interrupting a conversation. And just like you say, we we focus on so many little details from the kitchen to the front of the house to a phone call, making sure that we have all your allergies and things like that. And then eventually a guest sits down, they leave, and maybe they don't really recognize any of those details. Um but over the course of it, of enough people pick up like, oh, okay, like they're they're darting every eye here. So that was a great experience.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

It's it's so cool. It's so cool. Um, go back to we're looking at your your website now and the branding of your your your talk about I want to I do want to because I think this is fascinating for we have a lot of people that are business people listening to this. You talk about font, typeset, colors. I mean, there's just so much that goes into this that then ultimately will be who you are and what you repres. I mean, there's just I I love branding. I'm I mean I'm just really into it because I think it it can we just we just uh I think I told you yesterday we had our ribbon cutting. I started a business with my three daughters. Um and uh it's uh med spa and uh we called it Trebella for three beautiful daughters, and we spent a lot of time on why and how and the logo and all that. And I'm really proud of it because I think I'm I'm getting old, I'm 58 now. I've started a lot of businesses, I've had a lot of them fail, and I haven't been thoughtful sometimes, and and I'm getting more thoughtful about how we approach these. And I do have the how help of Maddie Rabe now, whereas before I didn't, but but I think we hit it out of the park with this one. And uh yesterday it was fun to watch so many people just see the logo and already recognize who it is and what it is and where it's fitting kind of in the marketplace. But how important all of that is, and then we have an interior designer, uh Jordan uh Yankovich with Kovichko, who's unbelievable. And I know she's an interior designer, but I don't ever do a logo now or a business where I don't call her and say, I want your thoughts, because she sees it in a different way. How's it gonna look on a wall? How's it gonna look on a sign? And she always has a little bit different take than the graphic designers do, and a little bit different take than so. I think getting opinions from creative people on how it will look or function and look on a menu, all of that matters because at the end of the day, you got one shot at this. Now you may be lucky enough to live long enough to have a business that's in like St. Luke's where you're like, okay, let's redo this. But most businesses, a lot of small businesses fail. And you need every uh chance of success that you can out of the gate, and it all matters. So uh anyway, long ramble, respond to that.

SPEAKER_02

Uh you're the expert here. Well I the thing that just popped into my mind as you were saying it, I one of the one of my most favorite it starts a lot of times with the company and and and the the people in charge of what they want. One of my favorite things, if you go to Coca-Cola, like the original Coca-Cola bottle, the brief that was given to create that was just a simple line. It was a bottle so distinctive, it would be recognizable if you handled it in the dark. And now you think about a Coca-Cola bottle and it's that. And so I think like when you get people who are in charge of something that understand the power of just doing something interesting, yeah, doing something that is just totally you, you will get to some really interesting work. Like I I love your logo, I think it's awesome. When I when I drive by and see it, um, like the it's an experience, it's unique, it's distinctive. So, but but you need people who understand and want that. Yeah, if we have to sell in the idea that it should be it should be distinctive or it should be really unique, then that's gonna be hard.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

So it's wonderful when you get clients and people you work with who are like, I just want it to be great, and it has to be me. We can get there. I love it.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so our logo actually well developed from just the letter K. Um, and as we were kind of talking it over, we was like, well, we we wanted something very simplistic. Um, you know, like when we plate food, it's like there's there's a certain aesthetic, we have a certain style, but a lot of times it's like, again, like keep it simple, right? Pull things back, have a little more negative space, have a little more clarity in it. Um so the case started, and then we realized like, oh, like let's make it a square. And then all of a sudden we're like, oh, it's it's origami. Yeah, yeah. So there is like a little nod to like my Japanese heritage, you know, kind of tucked within it. And we don't really mention too much of it, but what's funny is that fold across the diagonal and then like another diagonal fold. That's the it's the base of many things that you would make. It's just like a starting move, you know. So again, it's just like a little backstory tucked into it. I love that.

SPEAKER_02

And it makes it unique. Yeah, you know, like knowing knowing what what what it's about, it makes it it, you just get to something unique and ownable.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. Super cool, super cool.

AI As A Creative Tool

SPEAKER_03

Um, let's uh just because I know time goes quickly, I want I do want to get into with what your your thoughts are with the future, like where we're headed, um, and where does the human experience and creativity um lie, art lie as we've we're this is we're this is New Frontier, man. And I you look at the acceleration of AI in the last year, 12 months, I mean it is it's crazy what's going on. And and I now uh these large models are just getting more and more sophisticated, and what it's doing to art in all ways, and creativity and in every way. I'd like to hear what your perspective is on one, just that. And then two, how how how does it make it even more important than ever to have the humanity part of it?

SPEAKER_02

Do you want to go uh so I the you we can look at this in the negative lens or we can look at this? Let's look at the positive both ways. Okay.

SPEAKER_03

It depends on my night, which rabbit hole I'm gonna do.

SPEAKER_02

Okay.

SPEAKER_03

Let's start with Sometimes I'm ready, like, yeah, but I'm where I'm going to the bunker in McCall because it's over, and then sometimes it's gonna be okay.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

I don't know. Flip a coin.

SPEAKER_02

Let's start with the positive. Okay. Um there there was a great, I thought it was a great book not too long ago. It was called What Technology Wants. Yeah. And the premise of that book was that technology exists. In the end, it argues like is it beneficial or not? And in the end, the argument comes to it's a little bit beneficial because it helps you be your the thing you want to do, it helps you accomplish that. Technology can help you realize what you want to do, your ideas. So if we stick with that, you know, AI is can can do that. It can help you do things that you might not otherwise be able to do. Either get your head around an idea or bring something to life, or supplement a skill that you that you don't have, that somebody doesn't have. So it can do that. And then that thing that's inside of you that you need to get out into the world, it can help you do that.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

And that's applicable to everybody. And I think that that's the positive of it. And that gives me a lot of hope. And and one of the things that, like a really tactical example at the agency that we just did, which is kind of just fun. Anybody could do this, it's not rocket science or anything, but it's like one of the things that we did is like when we have an idea, we like what how do we make that come to reality? So we created these GPTs of really famous and current thinkers, and then we can we can like run something through. So we've got one of Rihanna, we have one of Sherlock Holmes, we have one of Dolly, like we have we have a bunch of of people, and it's like it's interesting to take the like thinking about an idea and see how these different Well, tell me more about this, because this is cool. Well, because you like you can you can I mean it's not obviously it's not them, but you you build it so that it reflects things that they've said, the artist works that are out there. And then it's just interesting to get like, oh, I hadn't thought of my idea like that. And I have taken it. Yeah, that's and and usually it's like plussing it. It's like I'm I've got this idea, I'm trying to get it to do this. And it's interesting because there's so many great thinkers out there. And like we've got one of Missy Elliott, you know, it's like the really great people, you know, and it's like you you run those ideas that that's a very tactical example. Anybody can do that. But on the positive side for us, it's like I do think that it can help you get your creative idea out and then make it happen. So that's the positive for me.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I mean we're we're slowly adapting to the AI in terms of thought creation, right? And it's exactly the same thing. I mean, we we genuinely believe like we're not inventing a new dish, we're not making new anything, right? It's all based on thousands of years of cultures across the world that have developed these things, right? We're just tweaking things here and there, um, maybe using foraged items from the foothills, right? So it has like a like a treasure valley footprint on it. But um, yeah, so we use these um it we use AI to again just idea generate. And then from there, we're fortunate because I mean it it will come, but the robotics in the kitchen are not quite impinging on us yet. So it is still preserving the craft of cooking and things like that, you know. So we're we're there a little bit, and you know, like it feels it's interesting. We do whole animal butchery, we do things like that. It's a hard skill to learn. It's uh it's uh every cook likes to learn it at the beginning until they've done it a few times, and then it's it's not glamorous, right? Um, but it's an important thing to hold on to. So for us, like it's not so much the AI stuff that is kind of threatening us, it's more just the convenience of food in general. Um, whether that be, I mean, fast food's been around for a long time, but now it's like DoorDash. It's these things of like, you don't have to do anything to just get food, right? Um, so that's hard because the value in what we do is being spread. Some people do appreciate it. Other people are like, oh, I wouldn't pay that much for this thing that I could just like get past food, you know, right then. But that is also still to our advantage because every once in a while people are like, no, I need this like human connection. I I appreciate this thing that they're putting forward.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I'm I'm sitting there listening to you guys thinking about like the so there's the there's the hyper productivity thing where you like hear Elon and kind of that vein, like it's gonna make things so much more productive. Like the the just the way to get work done, get thoughts out, refine thoughts, create is going to be so much easier that we're going to become hyper-productive, which is gonna lead to all this great growth and success and all this stuff. There's that. There's there's what's happening to us socially. As you're talking, Chris, I'm thinking, I'm thinking about just how me and my family have changed in the last five to seven years in how we interact with our community is just different. It just is. We, you know, it's just different. It's probably more fast-paced for me. I mean, I I'm thinking of my productivity is a lot more, but my days, and then I'm probably more, I'm probably less outward-facing. We probably go out less. Um, we probably, I mean, today today is a Friday. When I left this morning, uh, Shanna's like, what do you want to do tonight? And it like, she's like, Do you want to go to a movie? And I thought to myself, I haven't been to a movie forever. It might be kind of fun. And then I'm like, I've had a hell of a week. Why don't we just order something in and like go in our theater and watch something here? I mean, I I just think of how this goes, but but does a pendulum swing back at some point where people are craving authentic experiences again because there's fewer of them? I don't know.

SPEAKER_01

I mean, that's what we're hoping.

SPEAKER_02

That is our business, right? I think sometimes it's up to people who are in creative commerce to make stuff worth having that experience. Like the amount of care and activity that that brand does, I can't I can't get that elsewhere. It's like we went to see Project Hail Mary.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

And it in the theater, that is an incredible experience. Like it would have been more convenient to watch it at home. But it's like the the kids, it's like we need to see that in the theater. And it was amazing in the theater. Yeah. It was great. So I think it's like, and I think that it might have been the Ryan Gosling, the character that the actor in that said, we need to make as as filmmakers, we need to make things that are worthy of the cinema to go. And I think that was a soundbite he had. I might I might have that. But it it's a neat thought to be like it it all has to happen. I mean, when things are really easy, then it makes it upon you gotta do something really super worth it if it's gonna take a little bit more effort.

SPEAKER_03

And in theory, you can do that something that's super worth it easier than you ever could have before. I mean, think that's possible. I I just think of like no, this is another minor thing, but in our business, just the ability for Matthew and his team to make videos telling the story of our of new projects.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

You go back three or four years ago, we would be waiting for a 3D image to be rendered over a weekend by a firm in Salt Lake City and spending thousands of dollars to get one image, get it back. Is it right or is it not? And then I see what his team's able to do in a relatively short time and it blows me away. I'm sit down and it's like, you gotta be kidding me. And so you look at you look at the ability to tell stories, the ability to to create things now, to your point. Um, that part's fantastic. But I like I like what you just said, John, which is then then use that to make a compelling argument to get me to do something that brings me out, right? Yeah get me to come to a dinner, get me to come to something that I want to go have an experience because I'm tired of all this artificial stuff.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah, totally. I mean, and you know, like we're we're fortunate that we are maybe there's one brand for that company for years, you know. Yeah, we're we're one meal. You have to have many meals. Yeah, you know, so so we do have that ability to be like, hey, like that's fine, you know, have your 50 convenient meals and just save up for one time, you know, and then then it balances it for right, yeah. And we also have like we are again a unique place in terms of our setup. Um, we have one seating, and so everyone, whether you know someone or not, uh you're sitting, you're listening to the same story. Everyone gets an individual plate, but it's all at the same time. It's it's curated. Even if you have allergies, we get it to look exactly like, to feel like it, right? We tell these stories, and and the whole hope, and we are old school, old fashioned in it, but uh it feels like it's blipping back up, is that it's a shared connection, right? It's something that you you're outside of yourself, the people you sit next to, that you might have nothing in common outside of the walls of the place, but in that moment, you are right there with them. And there's something really beautiful about that. And you know, it doesn't hit every time, but most of the time it does. And so people leave having friends, making new friends. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

And like we have so and that and and regardless of what's going with technology, which has been fascinating. You look at longevity medicine. I mean, I come from healthcare, and I can't believe in 18 months where we are on genetic testing and risk analysis for cardiovascular disease, which is the number one killer, right? Just take that. But you know what everyone says in longevity medicine? Like, go go, no matter what rabbit hole you want to go down, it is connection to people, it is the thing that like it is friendships, it's social interactions that are number one, like probably under stop smoking and start exercising. But other than that, it is human connection, it is interactions, it's it's it's those are the things that are going to keep you young and vibrant is human interaction. So I've got a lot of hope. Like, like we went through the the positives, which are hey, more productive, probably more value on experiences that create humanity, and and I that's the hopeful part of it.

Authenticity Amid Online Heat

SPEAKER_03

The not hopeful part of it is how crazy our freaking society is now. It's stupid, John. I mean, it's just like we're so partisan and so torn up, and so it's so easy to just get online and rail. And it's just so funny. It is like we we we're just we had just uh last night I've got a 22-year-old daughter, and I came home. Well, she's 22, but she I I she still I take pretty good care of her, Shannon and I do because she waited until like 8:30 till I got home for me to cook her a hot dog on my blackstone grill. So this is not this is opposite of what you right. I'm like, why don't you just make something? She's like, well, because you do such a great job. So I went home anyway. I'm sitting there having this meal with her last night. Me and my wife were just kind of shooting the brief. She's there with her friend. And she said, Have you read all the comments on your latest thing on your 10 mile project? And I said, I stopped reading comments along. I ran for governor, I stopped reading comments, dear. She's like, Well, let's read them. So we start pulling them up, and they're just awful. They're awful. And then they started laughing and they're like, Well, you know, we have a bunch of fake accounts to hit these Karen's back. And I'm like, You do? And she's like, Yes. Anyway, I I hadn't looked for a long time, but people are just mean. We are just ridiculously mean.

SPEAKER_01

Uh yeah, you we've been kind of dealing with it for longer anyway, because Yelp, and Google is right. Oh, it's like, um, you know, it's it's just that thing of like five stars, five, fives, five, five, five, five, one. And you're like, oh, that's the one that everyone's gonna track, right? That that one they won't even read the fives. Yeah, totally. I mean, I I agree with you. I I stopped reading them. I mean, like, I'm getting back into it because some of them are like actual constructors, but very few of them. So it's just like you don't need to go through that emotion necessarily, but there was a time where um, you know, it's that thing like, yeah, is it political? Like, are we gonna divide people by are we gonna tiptoe around issues or are we just gonna be ourselves? And unfortunately for us, we've just decided to be ourselves. You know, we get kind of railed in certain things, certain places that we support and stuff like that. But you know, again, it's like authentic to us, it's part of us. I know like when we mentioned um just quickly that uh we tried to open during COVID. We did a lot of things outside, we did the uh take home meals just like everybody else. Um when we decided to come in or come inside with our meals because of our setup of everyone being communal in essence and shared experience, we were like, well, they gotta come in together and they can't eat with a mask. So, like, what do we do? So my wife is a physician at St. Luke's actually. Um, she was actually one of the first people to uh have a COVID patient. And um, so we were just like right there in it, and we just thought, you know, look, as as hard as these vaccine requirements are, you know, as divisive as they are, we were there's no other way that we can do it to have the people that want to support us come in and feel safe. So we did require proof of vaccination or a negative test, and we weren't even necessarily open. And our Yelp and Google contacted us and they were like, there is suspicious activity of how much volume there was. And it wasn't even from people here, right?

SPEAKER_03

It was from all over the place. You know what's cra well, first of all, we are as humans, like we go through something, and I think everyone got so fatigued with that thing that once it's over, there was a lot to learn from that. I wish I wish someone would write a book on the hypocrisy, like of the hypocrisy of humankind during COVID on both sides of this equation is crazy. And I could pick both sides of it, but it was crazy on on both sides, and yet. We kind of just said, ah, we're moving on. And in some ways, that's probably good because it's but but we there's a lot to learn from what happened. Drives me nuts. I I hear these stories and it just drives me nuts. People forget people forget both sides of it.

SPEAKER_01

They do. Yeah, yeah. Totally. Well, and you know, like it was a good learning experience for us in terms of uh, you know, like anytime we're we're very public in critique. Like, you know, like that's the that's the business of the way I'm sure you're in it, you know, you feel it as well. And so like for a a young business owner, uh someone that's just kind of getting used to it, you know, it's those first couple years, it just keeps you up at night. Like, you know, we're in the hospitality. We oh yeah, but by our nature, we want to make to please people and to make them comfortable. And you take it personally. Oh, totally. And so like over time, it's like, oh, okay, like you know, it's actually one of those things where it's like, well, everyone's getting dings. So that makes me feel maybe a little bit easier.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

Thick Skin And Creative Vulnerability

SPEAKER_03

Oh. I can't believe how fast this is gone. I want to um anything else you want to hit, John? We got about 10 minutes.

SPEAKER_02

I on the on this point, like with as creative people, it's like whenever you create something, there's a huge element of vulnerability. Like, whatever it is, you're you're putting it out there and you're you're like, here, here it is. And whether that's a strategy or something that you're serving somebody or an ad or a design or whatever, it's like you you're that moment when you when you show it to people for the first time, that's a really vulnerable thing. And I've been doing this for a long time, and it never really goes away. You get a little more comfortable with it, but it's still an act of you're creating something. And I I used to work for somebody who had this this phrase of people who worked in my industry, which I thought was really good. It described me. You need um uh you need uh uh a big heart, big brain, thick skins, and one to two degrees off center. And I always like that because I I I like that, but it was the thick skins part that I think is relevant here. Like you have to be able to have a little bit of a thick skin when that negative stuff comes to find a way through it. Do whatever process you have to recenter yourself, not let it hurt your confidence and go. So anytime that there is the ability to say what's great about something to somebody who's created something, do it. Because that helps like build their confidence and keep them going so that the next time when they have a bad day or they have the thing that didn't work, the dish didn't work, or the ad didn't work, they come back with something better.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

So but that thick skin, it's just something you gotta work on. It's tough.

SPEAKER_03

That's that's powerful. That'll be that'll be a clip. That'll be a clip for sure. Oh that was really, really, really good. And I and I can't, and and I think that the older I get, I think authenticity and what drives you and what your passion is allows you to have thicker skin because you believe in yourself. And even though one or two things may not go well, or you get criticism or whatever, you're like, no, I I believe in what I'm doing. I got a team that believes, you know, you get this thing that's bigger than yourself that you're doing, and it allows you sometimes to move forward in a way that's just like, okay, let's learn from it and go on, right? Yeah, but uh, but that's a that's a that momentum, that that that trait of being ready for that and then moving forward is I that's very powerful for young entrepreneurs, young whatever you're in of of that, that's a great lesson right there, John.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah, I totally agree. And you mentioned many businesses, some of them as failures, you know, like the the learning from the failure is something that we try to important everywhere, right? We talk about creativity as a muscle in terms of like you have to train it, right? You don't just like get it, you have to build it, and then you have to just keep it maintained instead of you know, no, don't always have to be growing it. But alongside the creative side is the failures, and you know, uh it it's you don't ever want to squander uh some sort of adversity, right? So we try to teach like, well, the failures are more important and in cooking, it for the most part, you can just do it again really quickly, right? But as they fail, fail, fail, fail, that yes, their confidence goes down, but then there's a stretch where it's like, hey, like what have you learned through this? Your creative process is faster, your execution on your technique is more solid, you know. Look back six months ago, look back a year ago, you know, and all those failures have built you here so that in this dish, maybe it doesn't hit, but it'll get there, right? And so we build confidence actually in the moment of when it's like this isn't right, but it's like look at the steps you've made, you know. And we do definitely like when it when it hits, it's like, all right, like that's one time you're gonna do that though. You know, one out of a hundred right there. I love

How They Keep Creativity Alive

SPEAKER_01

it.

SPEAKER_03

Hey, what do you what do the two of you do to foster creativity in your own lives? What do you do to because I think what one of the things that I try to do the older I get is you get in these routines where there's a lot to do that is more administrative. I mean, you know, kind of like the formula for success for me is what's the vision, what's your clarity around that vision, what's the plan, what's the action? And sometimes I get stuck in plan and action to try to execute, and I find myself if I don't, if I don't do something to keep my creative side of me going that creates the vision, things get pretty stale, and I'm not very happy. What do you do to foster creativity in your own personal lives?

SPEAKER_02

I listen to myself and I follow the roads of what I'm interested in the moment until I'm not interested in them anymore. So there was a time when I got really interested in um the most famous literature. So I spent a lot of time reading all of that until I was done with it, and then I moved on to the next thing. But I listened to myself in terms of what's naturally interesting me, and then I follow it. And what I find in my work is that I am able to pull really random things from different things that I was interested in because I went I went really deep on it and really learned like I like to just follow what I'm interested in. And like you that's how I do it.

SPEAKER_03

And I just kind of a constant curiosity constant and and allow that to take you to places that that you will learn and grow from constant and and not get stuck too long on I like that a lot.

SPEAKER_02

Constant. Like my my son is reading Sherlock Holmes right now. Yeah. So I'm like, that's a great so like going into that character, like it's really interesting. And then I go until I'm kind of done, then I move on to the next thing. So I just follow what's you know, outer space if I'm into that. I'll like I'll like just keep going and then leave. So that's the way I keep myself creatively going, is just I follow what I'm interested in until I'm not, then I go to the next thing.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Yeah, totally. I've I'm 100% in agreement. And we've built it actually kind of into our system of menus where we have one-week menus, we have five-week menus. We never go longer than that. And because everything is always themed, we were like, again, in terms of we've structured our creativity, we've structured my own inability to stay focused on one thing for a long time, right? Which is it always stays fresh. It's totally new. It's and then we get to dabble in different things. Like it's it's a local artist that we interview. So we get their creative process, we get their medium, we get their experiences, and so we learn from that. Or it, you know, the next menu is about the semi-quincentennial anniversary of the country. So we go through and we're like, what is American food? What is like ranch? What is like you know, quintessential American things? And all of a sudden we go to this rabbit hole of history, region uh regional Americana stuff, you know, and and then it's like eclipses, or it's forest fires, or it's whatever. And you know, we don't become experts in it, but we we dip a toe in and we get to learn, and we've gotten really uh a lot better about going into the network of the community that we know and being like, hey, you know more about this. Can we just like chat about it? And then we're gonna make a menu about it. And they're like, What? That sounds really cool. Uh I love it. So like brands, we'll just we'll just do them with branding.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I love it.

SPEAKER_03

I love

Where To Find Them

SPEAKER_03

it. Hey, just so our listeners um share your URLs for both of you, your businesses. So, Chris, it's uh it's Kin Boisey. Kinboisey.com and Drake Cooper.

SPEAKER_02

Uh yeah, Drake Cooper.com.

SPEAKER_03

Great. Hey, this has been awesome. Went by way too fast. Uh thank you very much uh for coming on and uh very enjoyable. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, thanks.

SPEAKER_01

Thanks for having us.

SPEAKER_02

Thanks for having us, yeah.