David Boylan's Lick the Plate reached its 2,000th episode this week, marking 15 years of culinary and culture radio that has moved through San Diego, Detroit-Windsor, Northern Michigan, and now metro Detroit on 100.7 Ferndale Radio. The milestone episode was recorded on the tour bus of the Scottville Clown Band — a Michigan institution since 1903 — during their performance at the Cedar Polka Fest, an unlikely but fitting pairing that captures the show's range.
For food and beverage operators, the show's longevity is the real story. Boylan designed Lick the Plate from the start around people, not plates — guests discuss cultural influences, musical tastes, and lives outside their kitchens. That editorial format kept the show relevant across format changes and market expansions, and it gave participating chefs, restaurateurs, farmers, and brewers a form of earned media that a 30-second spot cannot replicate.
Fifteen Years of Market Reach
The program launched on independent adult-alternative station 102.1 KPRI in San Diego in 2011, an outgrowth of Boylan's food column in The Coast News, which has run since 2007 and continues today. From KPRI, the show moved through the Entercom San Diego cluster — KBZT-FM 94/9, KSON-FM, KXSN-FM, 101.5 KGB, and ESPN Radio's The Mightier 1090 — before expanding into Detroit-Windsor on CIDR-FM 93.9 The River in 2015 and into Northern Michigan via MyNorth.com and eventually Q100/WQON in 2017. Each market entry meant a new roster of local operators, growers, and culinary personalities gaining radio exposure tied to storytelling rather than straight promotion.
Episodes have been recorded in restaurant kitchens, working farms, breweries, wineries, fishing boats, and music venues. The annual "Fish Stories" series — recorded on the Pacific Ocean, Lake Michigan, Lake St. Clair, and the Detroit River — extended the brand into outdoor and sportfishing communities, pulling charter captains and anglers into a food-and-culture conversation. That breadth signals something useful for operators evaluating media partnerships: audience crossover between food, music, and outdoor recreation is real, and niche radio formats can reach it efficiently.
What This Signals for Operators
Regional radio remains an underused channel for food and beverage brands that lack the budget for programmatic at scale. Lick the Plate's multi-market trajectory — built on independent and community stations rather than major-network buys — is a working model for brands targeting hyper-local foodservice communities in the Midwest and Pacific Southwest. The show now streams worldwide on the Audacy and Live365 apps, giving sponsors reach beyond terrestrial signal.
For operators in Michigan specifically, the show's current home at Ferndale Radio and its Detroit-area footprint align with a market that has seen significant independent restaurant growth and a maturing craft beverage sector. Brands entering that market should be mapping media partners like Lick the Plate before defaulting to digital-only spend. For a deeper look at how regional media fits into a broader operator growth strategy, see our coverage of local media buying for foodservice brands and earned media tactics for emerging food brands.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
