The STL Bucket List Show

On this episode of the STL Bucket List Show, we sit down with Ono Ikanone, the chef and owner behind Levels, an authentic Nigerian restaurant in the heart of downtown St. Louis on Washington Ave.

Ono Ikanone moved from Nigeria to St. Louis at 14, the youngest in a family that already had deep roots in the city. He figured out American life on his own, from traffic tickets to property taxes. He also learned to cook by calling his mom back home and following her recipes. What started as cooking for friends, with pregame hangouts at his place and parties that pulled together Nigerian friends, SLU students, and everyone in between, turned into a restaurant that opened in July 2023. He tells the story of buying the building, how his parents’ hopes for a doctor, lawyer, or engineer gave way to pride, and what it takes to own real estate in a tough industry, where one broken roof or HVAC unit can wipe out a month.

He walks through the evolution of the Levels menu, from the pepper soup with goat meat to spice levels that every guest can choose for themselves, plus Sunday brunch, catering, festival appearances, and pop-ups. He shares the story of a campus pop-up where a summer class left early and the college professor who said it was all his fault. He also talks about a trip back to Nigeria to reset and take in its hospitality scene, and about his dream of becoming a chef who cooks special dishes, comes out to tell the story behind them, and hosts dinner series.

He also shares some of his favorite spots around St. Louis, including Mama’s on the Hill and Me Hungry.

It’s a conversation about culture, hospitality, and building something bigger than a restaurant, one plate at a time.

They discuss:

• Moving from Nigeria to St. Louis at 14 and learning to cook by calling mom
• Buying a building on Wash Ave and winning over skeptical parents
• Turning friend gatherings into Levels, which opened in July 2023
• Pepper soup, adjustable spice levels, Sunday brunch, catering, and pop-ups
• The realities of owning a building in the restaurant industry
• A trip back to Nigeria, dinner series dreams, and his favorite St. Louis restaurants

Support the show

🎙 New episodes drop every Wednesday.

🔔 SUBSCRIBE FOR NEW EPISODES EVERY WEEK 🔔

🎧 LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts ▶ https://apple.co/36ycuuO Spotify ▶ https://spoti.fi/3svGoqS

🔗 CONNECT WITH STL BUCKET LIST: Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/stlbucketlist Website ▶ stlbucketlist.com

🤝 WORK WITH STL BUCKET LIST Interested in partnering or sponsoring an episode? Email ▶ [email protected] Website ▶ https://www.bucketlistcreative.com

🎧 Listen on Spotify, Apple, and YouTube
📍 Recorded at Bucket List Podcast Studio, St. Louis, MO

On this episode of the STL Bucket List Show, we sit down with Mark Sawyier, the founder behind GiftBetter. He’s reinventing the gift card so that every dollar stays in the community, one local business at a time.

Mark came from New York City to go to WashU and started his first business from his dorm room. He stayed in St. Louis for 20 years of building companies, including a digital marketing agency and the employee engagement platform Bonfire. When Bonfire’s clients kept asking for local gift card options, Mark dug into the numbers. Americans spend nearly $270 billion a year on gift cards, and about 90% of it goes to national chains. In St. Louis alone, close to $2 billion a year leaves the region. GiftBetter connects to the gift card systems local merchants already use, like Square, Toast and Clover. It adds video messages, custom physical cards you can load on the spot, and lets the recipient choose where to spend it. Merchants pay nothing to join.

It’s a conversation about why St. Louis is built for founders, what a gift card really says about the person giving it, and what happens when a startup’s growth is measured in dollars kept at home.

They discuss:

 - Mark’s path from NYC to WashU, and why St. Louis’s affordability, access and talent kept him here
 - How Bonfire’s corporate clients sparked the idea for GiftBetter
 - GiftBetter’s pillars: local spending, personalization, custom physical cards and recipient choice
 - How the platform helps merchants with cash flow and gives companies easy gifting with built-in tracking
 - Advice for young founders on de-risking, staying focused and ignoring vanity metrics

Support the show

🎙 New episodes drop every Wednesday.

🔔 SUBSCRIBE FOR NEW EPISODES EVERY WEEK 🔔

🎧 LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts ▶ https://apple.co/36ycuuO Spotify ▶ https://spoti.fi/3svGoqS

🔗 CONNECT WITH STL BUCKET LIST: Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/stlbucketlist Website ▶ stlbucketlist.com

🤝 WORK WITH STL BUCKET LIST Interested in partnering or sponsoring an episode? Email ▶ [email protected] Website ▶ https://www.bucketlistcreative.com

🎧 Listen on Spotify, Apple, and YouTube
📍 Recorded at Bucket List Podcast Studio, St. Louis, MO

On this episode of the STL Bucket List Show, we sit down with Charles Whitt, co-founder of the Mound City Film Festival — a free, full-day celebration of Saint Louis and the Midwest, one film, band, and bite at a time.

What started last year as a monthly Mountainfilm series at Four Hands Brewing Co. downtown, created to celebrate Open Space STL's 60th anniversary, is now taking over Atomic by Jamo in The Grove on Saturday, November 7th. Charles walks us through the day, from live art demos curated by Third Degree Glass Factory and climbing clinics with Climb So iLL to sets from Atomic Junction and chef-driven Atomic Eats pairings with Four Hands, plus the Mountainfilm tour lineup and regional filmmakers tackling our rivers, reforestation, native pollinators, and healing outdoors. He also shares why the festival leans environmental, what it took to screen 42 films this summer, and his vision for turning Mound City into a walkable, multi-venue neighborhood festival.

It's a conversation about Saint Louis stories, the great outdoors, and what happens when a city stops waiting for big events to come from somewhere else.

They discuss:

 - Growing a brewery film series into a full-day festival
 - Live art, local music, and food and drink pairings at Atomic by Jamo
 - Regional films on rivers, reforestation, and native pollinators
 - Bringing Mountainfilm's tour and outdoor adventure to STL
 - Planning your free day out and where Mound City goes next

Support the show

🎙 New episodes drop every Wednesday.

🔔 SUBSCRIBE FOR NEW EPISODES EVERY WEEK 🔔

🎧 LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts ▶ https://apple.co/36ycuuO Spotify ▶ https://spoti.fi/3svGoqS

🔗 CONNECT WITH STL BUCKET LIST: Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/stlbucketlist Website ▶ stlbucketlist.com

🤝 WORK WITH STL BUCKET LIST Interested in partnering or sponsoring an episode? Email ▶ [email protected] Website ▶ https://www.bucketlistcreative.com

🎧 Listen on Spotify, Apple, and YouTube
📍 Recorded at Bucket List Podcast Studio, St. Louis, MO

On this episode of the STL Bucket List Show, we sit down with Jordan Franks, the founder behind Taste of Jack's — a fresh, small-batch St. Louis salsa brand — and brand ambassador Spring, one jar at a time.

Jordan's salsa started as a COVID-era afternoon snack that suddenly clicked as a retail product, landing first at The Annex in Webster Groves and Fresh Thyme at City Foundry before growing to farmers markets, Food Truck Friday, and all 26 Dierbergs locations. He walks through the lineup — Sassy, Spice, Magic, and Unicorn — early collaborations like a Hi-Pointe special with Mike Johnson, and a new partnership with Keon Watkins of Sauce So Good that started with a chance meeting with Spring at Soulard Market and turned into a hit pop-up at Foodies Eat First Fest, planned in under two weeks. He gets candid about the regulatory and distribution realities of CPG, bootstrapping without giving up equity, and the personal sacrifices behind a brand named as a nod to his daughters.

It's a conversation about grit, fresh ingredients, and building something that lasts long enough to become someone's nostalgia.

They discuss:

 - Turning a COVID-era snack into a salsa on Fresh Thyme and Dierbergs shelves
 - The Sassy, Spice, Magic, and Unicorn lineup and why fresh beats shelf-stable
 - Collaborating with Spring, Sauce So Good, Hi-Pointe, and Sugarfire at Foodies Eat First Fest
 - The real work behind CPG: regulations, distribution, and staying grassroots-funded
 - Family, sacrifice, and a 10-year vision for a salsa with a story


🎙 New episodes drop every Wednesday.

🔔 SUBSCRIBE FOR NEW EPISODES EVERY WEEK 🔔

🎧 LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts ▶ https://apple.co/36ycuuO Spotify ▶ https://spoti.fi/3svGoqS

🔗 CONNECT WITH STL BUCKET LIST: Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/stlbucketlist Website ▶ stlbucketlist.com

🤝 WORK WITH STL BUCKET LIST Interested in partnering or sponsoring an episode? Email ▶ [email protected] Website ▶ https://www.bucketlistcreative.com

Support the show

🎙 New episodes drop every Wednesday.

🔔 SUBSCRIBE FOR NEW EPISODES EVERY WEEK 🔔

🎧 LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts ▶ https://apple.co/36ycuuO Spotify ▶ https://spoti.fi/3svGoqS

🔗 CONNECT WITH STL BUCKET LIST: Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/stlbucketlist Website ▶ stlbucketlist.com

🤝 WORK WITH STL BUCKET LIST Interested in partnering or sponsoring an episode? Email ▶ [email protected] Website ▶ https://www.bucketlistcreative.com

🎧 Listen on Spotify, Apple, and YouTube
📍 Recorded at Bucket List Podcast Studio, St. Louis, MO

On this episode of the STL Bucket List Show, we sit down with Mike Seper, Director of Innovation and IP at UMSL, and Mark Munsell of GeoSTL, the minds behind the first-ever Missouri Innovation Week, happening October 13–17. Mark spent 25 years at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency working on some of the world's hardest problems. Now he's leading the new Spirit of St. Louis AI Innovation Center, named after the nine St. Louis civic leaders who bet on a young aviator in 1927. The two walk through a week built for students as much as leaders: AI-for-good panels with Nvidia, Google, AWS, and World Wide Technology, a free student expo, an awards night at the Saint Louis Science Center Planetarium, and a 33.5-hour hackathon (the length of Lindbergh's flight) where high schoolers take on real challenges from the City of St. Louis. They also get into where geospatial and ag tech overlap, vibe coding, and why replacing workers with AI is a race to the bottom. It's a conversation about betting on the next generation and what happens when St. Louis decides to lead.

They discuss:
 - Launching Missouri Innovation Week and the Innovate USA Summit & Expo
 - The NGA, GeoSTL, and St. Louis' geospatial economy
 - The Spirit of St. Louis AI Innovation Center and using AI for good
 - Getting kids building with hackathons, robotics, and vibe coding
 - Why cutting jobs for AI is a mistake, and how to equip teams instead

Support the show

🎙 New episodes drop every Wednesday.

🔔 SUBSCRIBE FOR NEW EPISODES EVERY WEEK 🔔

🎧 LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts ▶ https://apple.co/36ycuuO Spotify ▶ https://spoti.fi/3svGoqS

🔗 CONNECT WITH STL BUCKET LIST: Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/stlbucketlist Website ▶ stlbucketlist.com

🤝 WORK WITH STL BUCKET LIST Interested in partnering or sponsoring an episode? Email ▶ [email protected] Website ▶ https://www.bucketlistcreative.com

🎧 Listen on Spotify, Apple, and YouTube
📍 Recorded at Bucket List Podcast Studio, St. Louis, MO

On this episode of the STL Bucket List Show, we sit down with Rachel King, the executive director behind MADE Makerspace — a creative hub on the Delmar Maker District where anyone can walk in and build just about anything, one project at a time.

Rachel spent 15 years as a wedding photographer and earned a degree in clinical mental health counseling before joining MADE as membership director. She'd only just been promoted to executive director when the May 16th tornado blew out the building's windows. By 7 a.m. the next morning, volunteers were lined up at the door, and once MADE was cleaned up they moved on to help the neighbors. Since then the mission has grown toward "make, connect, belong." That looks like $10 community classes for people priced out of or intimidated by the machines, a Maker to Market entrepreneurship program, and the Upward Spiral project: 26 Little Free Libraries covered in 3,000 community-made tiles. Now MADE is throwing its first in-person fundraiser. Maker Fest is an 18+ festival of creatives on October 2nd, with food and drinks from three Delmar restaurants, live demos, hands-on stations and a hard cap of 300 guests.

It's a conversation about resilience, belonging and what happens when a neighborhood decides the only option is to keep moving forward.

They discuss:
 - Rachel's path from wedding photographer and counselor to running MADE
 - The May 16th tornado and how the community showed up the next morning
 - How MADE's mission shifted toward make, connect, belong, including $10 classes and "bad art"
 - What to expect at Maker Fest: tastings, screen printing, a live wood lathe demo, maker vendors, Four Hands Brewing and Bold Spoon Creamery
 - Membership, 50+ pro-grade machines, businesses born at MADE and the Upward Spiral project

🎟 Get Maker Fest tickets ▶ madestl.com/makerfest

Support the show

🎙 New episodes drop every Wednesday.

🔔 SUBSCRIBE FOR NEW EPISODES EVERY WEEK 🔔

🎧 LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts ▶ https://apple.co/36ycuuO Spotify ▶ https://spoti.fi/3svGoqS

🔗 CONNECT WITH STL BUCKET LIST: Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/stlbucketlist Website ▶ stlbucketlist.com

🤝 WORK WITH STL BUCKET LIST Interested in partnering or sponsoring an episode? Email ▶ [email protected] Website ▶ https://www.bucketlistcreative.com

🎧 Listen on Spotify, Apple, and YouTube
📍 Recorded at Bucket List Podcast Studio, St. Louis, MO

On this episode of the STL Bucket List Show, we sit down with Logan Ice, founder of The Growth Den — a Saint Louis-based fractional growth and demand marketing consultancy helping local businesses stop guessing and start advertising with intention.

Logan first landed in Saint Louis for Washington University, but it was a $5 scalped ticket to a Cardinals-Cubs game — and a stadium-shaking Pujols walk-off grand slam — that convinced him to stay for good. After a detour to Seattle helping Varsity Tutors open a new office and years consulting for enterprise clients like Edward Jones and Centene, he built The Growth Den around a different model: instead of open-ended retainers, he embeds as a fractional head of growth, builds the tools and AI models a business needs, and then hands them the keys. In this conversation, Logan and Luke dig into the fundamentals every Saint Louis business owner should know — the difference between demand generation and demand capture, where a restaurant with a $500 budget should actually spend it, why protecting your own brand terms on Google comes before anything flashy, and the single biggest mistake he sees business owners make with their ad accounts. It's a conversation about building a business without losing your family in the process — and why, for Logan, the real ROI is never missing bedtime.

They discuss:

 - Why a Cardinals game sealed Logan's decision to call Saint Louis home
 - Building The Growth Den around an embedded, fractional growth model instead of retainers
 - The real difference between demand generation and demand capture
 - Where a local restaurant should spend its first $500 in ad budget
 - Knowing when it's time to stop DIY-ing your marketing and bring in help

Support the show

🎙 New episodes drop every Wednesday.

🔔 SUBSCRIBE FOR NEW EPISODES EVERY WEEK 🔔

🎧 LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts ▶ https://apple.co/36ycuuO Spotify ▶ https://spoti.fi/3svGoqS

🔗 CONNECT WITH STL BUCKET LIST: Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/stlbucketlist Website ▶ stlbucketlist.com

🤝 WORK WITH STL BUCKET LIST Interested in partnering or sponsoring an episode? Email ▶ [email protected] Website ▶ https://www.bucketlistcreative.com

🎧 Listen on Spotify, Apple, and YouTube
📍 Recorded at Bucket List Podcast Studio, St. Louis, MO

On this episode of the STL Bucket List Show, we sit down with Bubba Sparxxx, the Georgia-born artist behind two of the 2000s' biggest crossover hits — "Ugly" and "Miss New Booty" — ahead of his stop in St. Louis for the Tacos and Tequila festival.

Bubba talks about growing up on a dirt road in rural Georgia with, in his words, more natural ability than industry preparation, and walks through the different eras of his career — the cultural weight of "Ugly" during the TRL and 106 & Park years, and the sheer commercial size of "Miss New Booty," made with Mr. Collipark and the Ying Yang Twins and named for a line from the movie The Players Club before it took on a life — and a literal meaning — of its own. He traces his sound, which he calls "country hip hop" (or, more accurately in his telling, "hip hop country," since hip hop comes first), back to growing up idolizing Outkast and the Dungeon Family and being signed to Big Boi. He's candid about a long struggle with addiction and alcoholism that he says started as an internal condition long before his first drink, what it took to get sober in an industry that still encourages drinking and partying, and how the drug landscape facing young artists today — fentanyl, gas station opiates, nitrous — is a different, harder world than the one he came up in. These days he splits his life between the foot of the Rockies in Utah, where he doesn't record at all, and Atlanta, where recording is treated like a work trip; on the music side, he's releasing new singles like "Pop It" featuring Bun B ahead of Impolite Gentleman 2, and playing a stacked St. Louis lineup at Tacos and Tequila alongside Rick Ross, Paul Wall, Young Joc and Murphy Lee.

It's a conversation about longevity, honesty, and staying rooted in exactly where you're from — even when the whole industry is telling you to be someone else.

They discuss:

- Growing up on a farm in Georgia and the different cultural weight of "Ugly" versus the sheer size of "Miss New Booty"

- Coining "country hip hop" (really hip hop country) and the Outkast/Dungeon Family roots behind it

- An unusually candid look at addiction, sobriety, and how the music industry treats partying

- Splitting time between Utah and Atlanta, and treating recording like a "work trip"

- New music with Bun B and Paul Wall, and playing St. Louis's Tacos and Tequila festival

Support the show

🎙 New episodes drop every Wednesday.

🔔 SUBSCRIBE FOR NEW EPISODES EVERY WEEK 🔔

🎧 LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts ▶ https://apple.co/36ycuuO Spotify ▶ https://spoti.fi/3svGoqS

🔗 CONNECT WITH STL BUCKET LIST: Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/stlbucketlist Website ▶ stlbucketlist.com

🤝 WORK WITH STL BUCKET LIST Interested in partnering or sponsoring an episode? Email ▶ [email protected] Website ▶ https://www.bucketlistcreative.com

🎧 Listen on Spotify, Apple, and YouTube
📍 Recorded at Bucket List Podcast Studio, St. Louis, MO

On this episode of the STL Bucket List Show, we sit down with Marie-Hélène Bernard, the President and CEO behind the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra — the second-oldest orchestra in the country, now settling into a fully rebuilt home at Powell Hall and its 147th season.

Marie-Hélène arrived in Saint Louis in 2015 by way of Montreal, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Cleveland, drawn by an arts scene she says rivals anything on the East Coast — and walked in with a plan already in mind: preserve Powell Hall and rebuild it into the Symphony's future home, an eleven-year, privately funded undertaking that reshaped an entire block of Grand Center. She arrived just after the killing of Michael Brown, choosing to lean into Saint Louis's hardest conversations rather than avoid them, and that same community-first instinct now shows up in 130-plus local partnerships, the IN UNISON chorus's three-decade collaboration with Black churches, and an education philosophy she sums up as a cycle of life — the three-year-old in a classroom today becomes the 24-year-old on a first date at the Symphony, then the subscriber, then the board member. It's working: forty percent of last season's audience was brand new.

It's a conversation about legacy, risk-taking, and building an orchestra — and a neighborhood — that grows its own future one generation at a time.

They discuss:

 - Moving to Saint Louis from Boston in 2015 and rebuilding Powell Hall over eleven years

 - Leading the Symphony through the aftermath of Michael Brown's death

 - Growing 130+ community partnerships, including the IN UNISON chorus's work with Black churches

 - Building a pre-K-through-college education pipeline for future audiences and board members

 - Explaining why 40% of last season's audience was brand new


🎙 New episodes drop every Wednesday.

🔔 SUBSCRIBE FOR NEW EPISODES EVERY WEEK 🔔

🎧 LISTEN ON:
Apple Podcasts ▶ https://apple.co/36ycuuO
Spotify ▶ https://spoti.fi/3svGoqS

🔗 CONNECT WITH STL BUCKET LIST:
Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/stlbucketlist
Website ▶ stlbucketlist.com

🤝 WORK WITH STL BUCKET LIST
Interested in partnering or sponsoring an episode?
Email ▶ [email protected]
Website ▶ https://www.bucketlistcreative.com

Support the show

🎙 New episodes drop every Wednesday.

🔔 SUBSCRIBE FOR NEW EPISODES EVERY WEEK 🔔

🎧 LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts ▶ https://apple.co/36ycuuO Spotify ▶ https://spoti.fi/3svGoqS

🔗 CONNECT WITH STL BUCKET LIST: Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/stlbucketlist Website ▶ stlbucketlist.com

🤝 WORK WITH STL BUCKET LIST Interested in partnering or sponsoring an episode? Email ▶ [email protected] Website ▶ https://www.bucketlistcreative.com

🎧 Listen on Spotify, Apple, and YouTube
📍 Recorded at Bucket List Podcast Studio, St. Louis, MO

On this episode of the STL Bucket List Show, we sit down with Derrick Walker Jr., founder of Rides N' School Supplies, the North St. Louis organization that's turned a single car show into scholarships, school supplies, and mentorship for kids across the city since 2019.

Derrick was born and raised on a North St. Louis block he still lives on today, alongside eight other family members — including his 97-year-old grandmother. His path to Rides N' School Supplies started while mentoring teenage boys through the 100 Black Men of Metropolitan St. Louis inside the Juvenile Detention Center. After a year of one-hour weekly sessions, he realized the bigger opportunity wasn't helping kids after they'd already ended up there — it was keeping them out in the first place. So he and his cousin, both Dodge Charger owners at the time, turned their shared love of cars into a car show built around scholarships and community resources. Nine years later, the organization is a family affair: his wife serves as treasurer, his mom and dad are involved day to day, and his son's godfather runs creative strategy.

Derrick shares the story of Stefan Riggins, a scholarship recipient now studying at Harris-Stowe, and opens up about the organization's most personal project: restoring a donated 1979 Corvette in memory of his late cousin Morris, known at the O'Fallon Park rec center as "Mo Fallon," who passed away playing basketball in 2019. They talk about a dream Harris-Stowe full-ride partnership, nearly $60,000 in scholarships given out so far, and what it means when parents pull Derrick aside in tears.

It's a conversation about using cars to open doors, family showing up for family, and building something in St. Louis that outlasts any one car show.


They discuss: 
• Building Rides N' School Supplies from a single car show in 2019 
• Mentoring teens at the Juvenile Detention Center through 100 Black Men of Metropolitan St. Louis 
• Realizing prevention could matter more than intervention 
• Growing up on the same North St. Louis block as eight family members, including his 97-year-old grandmother 
• Running the organization as a family — wife, mom, dad, and cousins all on the team • Using cars as a hook to introduce kids to bigger life lessons • Watching community members show up for the kids even in the rain 
• Following Stefan Riggins's journey from scholarship recipient to Harris-Stowe student and fraternity brother 
• Teaching real-world skills through the Automotive Symposium, from oil changes to electric vehicles 
• Restoring a 1979 Corvette donated in memory of his late cousin, Morris "Mo Fallon" 
• Partnering with Rankin Technical College to expand automotive training • Dreaming of a full-ride Harris-Stowe scholarship partnership 
• Wanting to bring his Uncle Sheldon's 1968 Plymouth Road Runner back to the next show 
• Trading rapid-fire picks on dream cars and favorite St. Louis sandwich spots

Support the show

🎙 New episodes drop every Wednesday.

🔔 SUBSCRIBE FOR NEW EPISODES EVERY WEEK 🔔

🎧 LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts ▶ https://apple.co/36ycuuO Spotify ▶ https://spoti.fi/3svGoqS

🔗 CONNECT WITH STL BUCKET LIST: Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/stlbucketlist Website ▶ stlbucketlist.com

🤝 WORK WITH STL BUCKET LIST Interested in partnering or sponsoring an episode? Email ▶ [email protected] Website ▶ https://www.bucketlistcreative.com

🎧 Listen on Spotify, Apple, and YouTube
📍 Recorded at Bucket List Podcast Studio, St. Louis, MO