David Boylan's Lick the Plate recorded its 2,000th episode this week, marking 15 years of a format that blends culinary storytelling, cultural biography, and music programming across markets stretching from San Diego to metro Detroit and Northwest Michigan. The milestone episode featured the Scottville Clown Band — a Michigan institution founded in 1903 — recorded on the band's tour bus ahead of their Cedar Polka Fest performance.

How the Show Grew

The program originated from Boylan's food column in The Coast News of Encinitas in 2007 before graduating to radio on independent adult-alternative station 102.1 KPRI in San Diego in 2011. From there, distribution expanded across the Entercom San Diego cluster — including KBZT-FM 94/9, KSON-FM, and KXSN-FM Sunny 98.1 — before adding 101.5 KGB and The Mightier 1090 ESPN Radio. The show entered the Detroit-Windsor corridor in 2015 via CIDR-FM 93.9 The River, then developed a Northern Michigan footprint starting in 2017 through MyNorth.com and a succession of regional stations culminating in Q100/WQON. It currently airs on 100.7 Ferndale Radio and streams worldwide through the Audacy and Live365 mobile apps.

Format as a Trade Model

The Lick the Plate format is notable in the foodservice media landscape for what it deliberately is not: a conventional restaurant-review program. Boylan structured interviews around guests' musical influences, cultural backgrounds, and off-menu interests alongside their professional stories — a model that has attracted chefs, restaurateurs, farmers, brewers, winemakers, charter captains, and musicians across five broadcast groups over 15 years. Recording locations have included brewery floors, winery cellars, fishing vessels on Lake Michigan and the Pacific Ocean, and circus trains, giving the show flexibility that studio-based food programming typically lacks.

The annual "Fish Stories" series illustrates how the format translates culinary identity beyond the restaurant: episodes recorded on Lake St. Clair, the Detroit River, and open-water charters connect food-and-beverage sourcing narratives to the fishing and agricultural communities that supply them — a connection of increasing editorial interest to trade audiences covering regional food systems and farm-to-table supply chains.

Operator and Broadcaster Perspective

"It's a perfect fit for the eclectic mix of programming on Ferndale Radio," said Dave Kim, program director at 100.7 Ferndale Radio, who noted he had followed the show since its Detroit-market debut on 93.9 The River.

For the foodservice and hospitality sectors, the show's trajectory is a case study in how culinary media properties can achieve multi-market distribution without a network television budget — relying instead on regional radio partnerships and digital streaming to build cumulative audience. Its 15-year run also spans major structural shifts in both food media and commercial radio, from the pre-podcast era through the consolidation of terrestrial radio groups and the rise of app-based streaming. For operators and brands considering media and marketing partnerships in regional markets, the Lick the Plate model demonstrates durable audience engagement through personality-driven programming tied to local culinary identity.

Boylan credited guests, sponsors, and radio partners for sustaining the program: "Reaching this milestone is both humbling and incredibly gratifying. I'm thankful to every guest who trusted us with their story."

The Scottville Clown Band, a nonprofit that also funds youth music education through scholarships and grants, rounds out the 2,000th episode with the community-rooted spirit that has defined the program's editorial voice across its run. For more on how regional food-and-beverage media intersects with restaurant industry trends, see related coverage from F&B Industry News.

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.