Once again, I’m doing something a little different on the podcast this week. Instead of a chef, I sit down with my very good friend Dave Andrews of Good Life PR. As many of you know, I try to preserve as much objectivity as I can around what I write about, so I generally don’t have a lot of relationships with people in food and drink PR.

Dave, however is an exception because he’s very good at what he does and respectful in the way he does it, and also because we’ve known each other since we were both working journalists in the mid-2000s.

Dave started in sports journalism, reporting on the Kobe/Shaq Lakers and eventually as a beat reporter for the Chicago Blackhawks in 2001.

I met him when he was a food and drinks writer for Thrillist Chicago one of the first successful push email platforms pioneering what Substack is perfecting today.

What really attracted me to Dave is how he had a very funny standout voice in a sea of sameness. Since then he’s gone on to manage and run bar programs and eventually became the 360 PR agency for restaurants like Fifty/50 (Roots, Berkshire Room etc..), and chefs like Won Kim of Kimski.

Most recently Dave has become a go to guy for branding new pizza spots like Bob’s pizza, home of the pickle pizza, and a new tavern option called WG Pizzas.

In this episode we talk about Dave’s career, the greatness of Won Kim, the heydey of Chicago food and drinks reporting from 2005-2015, the influencer industry, the struggle of independent restaurants, and the importance of a place like Daisies being the cultural hub for Chicago’s current food scene.

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