Friendly City

Why Mashita Is Closing After 13 Years

This week on Friendly City, chef and former restaurant owner Mikey shares the real story behind building Mashita — from identity and belonging to burnout, family, and learning when to walk away. We talk about chasing dreams, the realities of running a restaurant, how Covid changed people, and why building something meaningful matters more than chasing a dollar. Follow Mikey https://www.instagram.com/chefmikeyreisenberg/

Scary AI Facts That No One Talks About

In this episode, I sit down with Joe Holmes to talk about what people get wrong about artificial intelligence, how AI agents are changing work, and why the future of AI is going to be more personal, more powerful, and much stranger than most people realize. Learn more from Joe:Building AI Agents for Beginners: https://www.edx.org/learn/artificial-intelligence/davidson-college-building-ai-agents-for-beginners LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joe-holmes-ai-ml/ Website: https://joeholmes.devDevpost Learning Hackathon:https://learn-ai.devpost.com/ Resources mentioned:Janus’s Simulators essay:https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/vJFdjigzmcXMhNTsx/simulators Blog post with Tetraspace’s famous shoggoth cartoon:https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/janus-simulatorsAdversarial poetry paper:https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.15304

The Village to Village Story

Heidi Dove, founder of Village to Village, joins us to discuss her work in fostering community self sufficiency through a Christian organization. We talk about the challenges of starting a nonprofit organization and the importance of effective nonprofit leadership. This conversation highlights how their efforts address global issues, making a tangible impact one village life at a time. Great Community Give https://www.greatcommunitygive.org/organizations/village-to-village?utm_source=yt&utm_medium=podcast&utm_content=friendlycity Village to Village https://www.hope4villages.org/ https://www.instagram.com/village_to_village/

Why Most People Are Fixing the Wrong Things

In this episode, Nik Tucker shares his journey from chasing validation, success, and a party lifestyle to finding real purpose, identity, and transformation. We talk about mental health, self-improvement, faith, and why most people are fixing the wrong things in their lives.If you’ve ever questioned your purpose, struggled with your thoughts, or felt like something is missing—this conversation is for you.

The Real Story Behind The Founding Fathers

History usually feels like something that already happened. Clean. Organized. Inevitable. But the reality is… it didn’t feel that way at all. In this episode, I sit down with Travis—a Revolutionary War reenactor who takes his craft very seriously—to talk about what was actually happening during 1776. Not the version we learned in school, but the moments where everything was uncertain, messy, and very close to falling apart. At the end, we break down a list of the qualities that made the Founding Fathers great founders—and why those same traits still matter today.