Daily Inspiration: Meet Amy Kunstle

Today we’d like to introduce you to Amy Kunstle.

Thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
My path to creating Pop Kitchen & Events started with my wonderful father observing my obsession for “cooking” herbs, pencil shavings, flowers, and such to serve in bottle caps in my restaurant for my dolls when I was about seven. He recognized my entrepreneurial mindset as his own and promptly cut an opening in our backyard fence for my sister and me to create a take-out window for our dolls and with this, my passion grew to purpose.

From that moment on, my desire to feed people healthy and delicious food grew into a career as a registered dietitian working in clinical practice, then ultimately into a dual certification with a master’s degree in speech-language pathology which allowed me to study swallowing, feeding, and communicative disorders.

Melding the two fields of study created opportunities to work privately with patients on improved nutrition, safe and effective feeding/swallowing, and improved communication across age groups. Being in private practice, also helped me learn how to reduce barriers for other clinicians who joined me as contractors in my practice, ultimately supporting many of them with a working knowledge of the ways and means for them to open their practices.

My clinical practice was a joy. It filled me with happiness and purpose; however, my love of culinary science and the restlessness of longing for a business that would ultimately merge all of my interests under one roof became the impetus to create Pop.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
The road to creating Pop has oddly been both smooth and full of struggles. Choosing to close a private practice that I loved was a hard decision.

It was harder still set in a period of moving to Colorado Springs, caring for my elderly parents during terminal illnesses, and watching my kids move on to college. To say, I felt called to create Pop is an understatement. It has become the living embodiment of my love for my patients, parents, family, professional support, and growth all wrapped into one concept that is designed to shelter and support people through hospitality and incubator support that opens doors for growth and better days.

I have struggled, but my purpose has grown stronger with every obstacle and resolution. My life has led straight to this conclusion and coalescence of education and passion, not to mention the desire for joy. Hence, the name, Pop. It embodies the fusion of ideas, the opportunity to create a moment of joy, the launch of an opportunity…the frisson of joy.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
One of the greatest surprises of my life happened firmly in my mid-40s when I became deeply anxious and depressed going to work in a job I loved. I could not understand what was happening to me until I realized that I was starving creatively. I had never thought of myself as a creative person and then I simply could not get enough. I was voracious with a longing to create meaningful, creative learning opportunities for my patients to grow and learn. I began to study and specialize in creating thematic language-based, literacy-centered subscription boxes for SLPs and teachers to work with children.

I quickly discovered that my favorite books and boxes centered around culinary concepts and I was catalyzed by the capacity that culinary work has inherently in the executive function, organizational, creative, and language-based skills offered by creating and cooking food. It was the spark that fueled my recognition of what was possible capturing all of the elements I loved under one roof at last. To create and launch Pop, I finally could fuse my love of nutrition and cooking, understanding of making food and beverage accessible to those with difficulties, expertise in entrepreneurial mentoring and support, and creative integration of education and language/literacy-based thematic joy into one glorious disruptive platform of collaboration.

I am most proud of the creative opportunities that our restaurant and shared kitchen can offer to our guests of all abilities and to the small businesses we hope to serve. Pop has been carefully and lovingly designed to meet small culinary businesses exactly where they are from cottage-based opportunities to pop up and sell their goods directly to customers to food trucks, caterers, and bakers that will cook and leave as well as those who would like to join us in a specialty role and create food that we will sell for them as part of our collective menu. We can facilitate small pop-ups, events, private small dinners, recipe transitions for existing restaurants, recipe testing, growth opportunities for restaurants with new concepts, etc.

I am honored as an RD, SLP, and entrepreneur to ask our guests alike to sit and steal a moment. Bring their journal, enjoy a healthy meal, and re-center their hearts on what ideas make them the most whole and their lives beautiful. I love the question of Mary Morrisey with Dream Builders; what would they love? And then, I would love to provide shelter with hospitality in which they can heal from the hard times and celebrate the good.

I think what sets me apart is my love and pursuit of the art and science of what we hope to provide and accomplish. Coming from a clinical background, I have worked with and cared for many patients who have struggled with communication or feeding/swallowing difficulties. I have also watched and supported many fledgling businesses as they have worked to achieve liftoff in challenging circumstances. My compassion for the challenges people face in both personal and professional endeavors is a good fit for me to offer a platform of support, joy, mentorship, hospitality, and collaboration.

We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up.
My favorite childhood memory is the long Sundays with my Dad. He was my mentor who taught me the true value of working and playing hard.

Our Sundays were often spent either tooling around in the garage fixing cars and welding at his car dealership, trail-riding on motorcycles, or doing touch-and-go’s in our small airplane until sunset then washing, waxing, and storing the plane to be followed by Dutch lunch at Gus’s Tavern in Pueblo.

Watching him thrive and function in his business aligned my soul to expect my life to look just like his. His weekly phone calls checking in on the week when my private practice was established were some of the most grounding calls of the rhythm of my life.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @popkitchenandevents
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063893930455