Check Out Clinton Hall’s Story

Today, we’d like to introduce you to Clinton Hall.

Hi Clinton, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
How I got started is a crazy story. Back in 2020, I got into some bad stuff and was super depressed. I wasn’t sure what to do with my life at that time. I knew I always loved cooking; anytime I would cook, I would forget about everything. Cooking would put me at peace every time. So, I just focused on cooking a lot over the years.

After cooking for a long time, I wanted to take it to the next step and go to culinary school. I knew I didn’t want to go to culinary school in the US, so I started looking at culinary schools in Italy. After I found the school that fit my cooking personality, I immediately started to plan out the next two years to save up enough money to go there.

My plan was to take the Whole Foods produce supervisor position in Boulder, Colorado; work there for a year or two, then move to Italy with my two good friends who are finishing their senior year here at CU Boulder. Without even thinking twice, I packed my bag four months after I visited for the first time and moved out here.

After about six months of working and living in Boulder, I really started to focus on my cooking craft. I would always cook for my good friends Matei, Chris, and Sean. They would always tell me how good my food was and that I needed to start making TikTok videos.

One day, my good friend Sean pressured me into making a cooking video, and here we are now. I’m forever grateful to my friends and family for supporting me and pushing me to be the person I am today. If it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t have even started making these videos. They didn’t change me or anything; they just helped me find myself.

Can you talk to us about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
To be honest, there haven’t been many struggles to get to where I am now. I haven’t even been doing this for a year yet, so only time will tell. However, there were several struggles and obstacles I went through before I started making videos.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I work in Produce at Whole Foods in Boulder as one of the two Produce Supervisors. However, what got me this magazine interview is what I do outside of work. I cook food on social media and create recipes, which I absolutely love. I wish I could do it full-time, but at the moment, that’s not an option. Teaching people how to cook and create their own recipes is incomparable.

Cooking has honestly declined; fewer people cook nowadays since COVID. Services like DoorDash and Uber Eats have contributed to this decline. However, during the COVID era, platforms like TikTok and Instagram Reels gained immense popularity. That’s when I realized it would be a great way to teach people how to cook. A couple of years later, that’s exactly what I did.

What’s next?
My future plans definitely include finishing my cookbook, which has been in progress for over 6 months now. I anticipate working on it for at least another year, so we’ll see when I finish that, but it is certainly one of my biggest goals for the future.

Another significant goal for the future is to start doing pop-ups. I envision traveling to big cities and taking over a restaurant for a week to showcase some of my dishes. Alternatively, I could invest in a food truck and take it to major cities. There are multiple approaches to achieving this goal; I simply want everyone who supports me to have the opportunity to taste my food.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/clintyur
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCk87vy9lWNcu-vng4vF2WQA