Small Lake City
Small Talk, Big City
Join host Erik Nilsson as he interviews the entrepreneurs, creators, and builders making Salt Lake City the best place it can be. Covering topics such as business, politics, art, food, and more you will get to know the amazing people behind the scenes investing their time and money to improve the place we call home.
Follow along for more!
Episodes
224 episodes
S2,E25: Bringing Millions to Salt Lake with Visit Salt Lake's Kaitlin Eskelson
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 peo...
New Trains, New Hospital
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 ...
S2, E24: Why Would Anyone Run 100 Miles, with Jesse Rich
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 ...
Record Heat, Flash Floods, And What To Do For Pioneer Day
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 w...
S2, E23: Angie Amundsen Risked Everything to Build Utah's Most Instagrammable Brunch Spot
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 ...
Your Salt Lake City Guide To Pioneer Day And Pie And Beer Day
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 ...
S2, E22: Detroit-Style Pizza Done Right with Sean Ladle
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 ta...
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Wildfires Surge As Salt Lake Preps For July 24
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 Jua...
S2, E21: More Than Dinosaurs, Inside Utah's Most Fascinating Museum with Jason Cryan
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...
Cottonwood Fire Updates And What To Do Before July Fourth
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 si...
S2, E20: How Eli McCann Became Utah's Favorite Story Teller
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 wit...
Utah Wildfires, Air Quality Warnings, And What’s Still On For July 4
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 wha...
S2, E19: How Tom Wallisch Changed Freeskiing Forever
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 m...
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Salt Lake City Budget Hikes Explained With Gondola Land Shock
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 prop...
S2, E18: Building A Fantasy Tavern In Salt Lake, Thieves Guild
S2, E18: Thieves Guild Cidery - Max Knudsen & Jordy KirkmanA 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 ...
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How A $200,000 Lego Fight Turned Into Arrests
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 a...
S2, E17: Thayne Rich - From Utah Local to Professional Skier
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...
Real Salt Lake Lawsuit, New 400 South Trail, And Utah’s June Proclamation
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...
S2, E16: Celeste Edmunds - From Trauma To Legacy At Christmas Box International
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 trut...
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Utah’s Drought Reality Check
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 r...
S2, E15: Rosie Card
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 runni...
The Great Salt Lake Data Center Fight
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 procedu...
Vault Episode 13: Adam Barker
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...
The Jazz Land No. 2 And The State Finally Gets A Bit Of Good News
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 ...
S2, E14: Dan Benshoff & AJ Nielsen - Volunteers of America, Utah
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...
