Building a Platform: DC Food Content Creators
AJ Dronkers and LaToya Needham are two of the most watched DC food content creators working today, and neither of them planned it. One got laid off and ended up on food stamps. The other got snowed in in Iceland and started journaling. Two years later they have the kind of reach legacy food media keeps trying to buy, and they disagree, on camera, about who in this city is allowed to have an opinion.
Industry Night is back at Modan in McLean, and this is the DC food podcast episode about the thing everybody in the Washington DC restaurant world argues about and nobody defines. Creator, influencer, critic. Nycci Nellis sits down with AJ Dronkers, the former Edible DC co-founder turned full time creator who picked up a massive following in under two years, and LaToya Needham, the Eloquent Epicurist, who built a luxury food, travel and champagne platform while holding down a nine to five. They get into the money, honestly. First collaborations, media kits, what a fair rate looks like when you have no idea what you are worth, and why AJ pitches fifteen companies a week instead of waiting for the inbound. They get into the harder stuff too. Whether the DC dining scene has any room left for a real critic, what trust actually requires from somebody with an audience, and how you keep your head straight when you are failing in public every week. Then Modan general manager and beverage director Corey Landolt makes a cocktail and explains why the whole bar program is batched. Two guests, one host, zero press release energy.
