“We just kind of grew up working with him in the shop.” For Joseph Recksiek, becoming part of Mt. Olympus Clock Shop was less of a career decision than something that happened naturally. He and his six siblings grew up nearby, and by junior high, Joe was coming in after school several days a week to unpack merchandise, organize shelves and take on whatever job his father handed him. One of his earliest memories is dismantling cuckoo clock movements so they could be repaired.

“My mom’s famous sayings are, ‘The kitchen is a lab,’ and ‘If you can read, you can cook.’” Long before Amy Lund opened Dough Lady, Sundays in her childhood home in Sandy were spent in the kitchen with her mother and two sisters. They made homemade bread, brownies, cookies, zucchini bread, and banana bread, experimenting as they went. In a household where sweets were otherwise limited, if the girls wanted a treat, they made it themselves.

“This place kind of saved my life in a lot of ways.” For Candice Pulli, the warm, welcoming, and unpretentious Lazy Day Cafe has never been only a restaurant. Tucked back from the road in Millcreek, it became a source of stability, family, reinvention, and community for Candice and her children during some of the most difficult and transformative years of their lives.

“I do not go anywhere without being asked about gardening.” LaRene Bautner says it with quiet certainty. The conversation takes place in what was once the Bautner family home, now one of the offices at Millcreek Gardens - tucked inside what her daughter laughingly calls “the scary closet.” It feels fitting. It is a place where past and present naturally meet. LaRene grew up on this property, raised her five children here, and today works alongside two of them, Heidi Orme and Chris Bautner. Together, they continue a garden center that has been part of Salt Lake City for seven decades.

“Once we opened, I gave every minute, every second of my life to the restaurant to make sure that it would succeed.” For Giuseppe Mirenda, Sicilia Mia was never simply the opening of a restaurant. It was the realization of a family dream that began long before Salt Lake City, and long before he was old enough to sign a lease or speak English. The roots of that dream stretch back to Palermo, Sicily, where food was woven into daily life so completely that family, work, and cooking were inseparable.