Zest Kitchen & Bar is a restaurant in downtown Salt Lake City that was launched by Casey Staker in late 2012. It's an organic, vegetarian, gluten-free restaurant with a fresh juice cocktail bar and they’re right on 275 S 200 W, across from Red Rock Brewing, right around the corner from Squatters Pub Brewery and the Salt Palace Convention Center.

Zest is trendy, it’s upscale, and their food is lightweight and healthy. And at night, the cocktails flow, all crafted with fresh juice and ingredients with a creative twist. Drinks like a jalepeño margarita, a ginger spice whiskey cocktail with a fresh apple slice, and a summer beet sangria.

But on the weekend nights, Casey's history in the nightclub business shows through: at 10p on Friday and Saturday nights Zest has music and dancing, and the small vegetarian restaurant goes from dinner to nightclub, with great DJs, music, and club atmosphere.

Casey Staker’s career started in 2004 when he bought into a new nightclub at the time, the W Lounge. And almost 10 years later, Casey closed it down to pursue his next project—a place he would actually want to hang out at—a restaurant with healthy food and drinks that’s open late, and he could go to on the weekends. So in 2012, Zest Kitchen & Bar was born.

On this episode of The Utah Foodie Podcast, we sit down with Casey Staker to talk about his life growing up in rural Utah, to running one of the hottest clubs in Salt Lake City, to today where he works out of Zest, dreaming up healthy food and cocktail menu items, and planning for expansion.

This episode of The Utah Foodie was hosted by Chase Murdock and produced by Ryan Samanka. Visit our episode archive on Ventricle Presents, and stay connected with us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

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