A newsroom-wise, cross-platform project to increase local and subscriber engagement to our local restaurant coverage
I've always known Kansas City has a vibrant food scene — and it's not all about barbecue, either. I grew up in the local restaurant industry. My dad managed local favorites like Stroud's and Blue Moose before I worked my first job at 16 at Eggtc., a breakfast spot in Shawnee.
So when my editors at The Star came to me asking if I'd help drive the audience behind a new project, Let's Dish, Kansas City, it was an easy yes. We knew our local food coverage was a huge magnet for returning audiences — in the last six months of 2022, 62% of readers engaging in our openings & closings coverage was local to Kansas City.
Then, we started Let's Dish. The idea was simple: Ask our reporters and editors to go eat their favorite local dish at a KC spot, find out how its made, and write about it. It was a way to cover local dishes our city loves without a designated food critic or food writer. At the same time, it helped our reporters and editors engage with KC audiences on a more personal level, sharing their personalities and interests outside of their beats.
We accompanied the stories with a weekly newsletter, written every other week by me (trading off with our restaurant and retail reporters) and a revamped social media presence for food news. I revived an old Star Instagram account, previously called @chowtownkc (the decade-old name of our food section), changing it to @kcstar.food and turning it into a platform to post content from our Let's Dish series and other industry news.
When I first took over the account, at the beginning of 2023, it had around 4,000 followers. As of August 2024, I've grown it to nearly 8,000 followers by posting consistent restaurant news, from openings and closings to Let's Dish features.
I wanted the design to feel vibrant and playful, like the local food scene I grew up in. I chose orange and pink as focal colors to juxtapose the sometimes-duller colors of food. I want the photos to speak for themselves, but not carry the content, and the subtle design tweaks from our flagship account's templates helped create a closely linked, but distinct brand for the section.
The Let's Dish newsletter, which sends to over 13,000 readers every Friday, has garnered an average click-through rate of 11% in 2024. Comparatively, other section-specific newsletters, like The Star's Politics newsletter or Opinion newsletter, had an average click-through rate of around 3% in 2024.
