Katelyn Umholtz
Katelyn Umholtz covers Kansas City’s restaurant and bar scene with a mix of service reporting and close attention to the people and workplaces that shape it. As The Star’s Food Insider, she focuses on food and beverage news, from new openings and closures to the ways diners actually use the city’s restaurants and bars. Her food coverage draws on nearly a decade of experience across different newsroom roles, including earlier work as a food and restaurant reporter and as a general assignment and education journalist.
Restaurant openings and closings
A consistent strand in Umholtz’s work is detailed coverage of restaurant and bar openings, expansions and closures across the Kansas City area.
She has reported on a popular biscuit sandwich restaurant expanding in the city, highlighting how the concept fits into the existing breakfast and brunch landscape. Her pieces on chain expansions, such as another Chick-fil-A location planned for a suburban area, track corporate growth alongside local reaction and context. On the other side of the life cycle, she covers closures of well-known spots, including an acclaimed barbecue restaurant and longtime steakhouses, noting what their departure means for regulars and the broader dining scene.
These stories typically include concrete details useful to diners: where the business is located, what is on the menu and when it is expected to open or shut its doors. In a first-look inside a Tuscan sandwich shop and wine bar, she walks readers through the space and offerings before opening day, giving a preview of how the concept is meant to feel and function. Her coverage of an eclectic Westport bar with steak and crab legs likewise blends description of the food with a clear picture of hours and operations.
The reporting is straightforward and practical, but her choices of which places to feature show an interest in both everyday spots and more ambitious, chef-driven projects.
Guides to where and when to eat
Umholtz devotes significant attention to service pieces that help readers decide where and when to eat and drink in Kansas City. In a column asking which restaurants she should visit first as the new Food Insider, she frames her beat around the central question of “Where should we eat?” and invites readers to help shape her coverage. Her update on late-night dining after Town Topic stopped operating 24 hours revisits and refreshes The Star’s guide for eating out after traditional hours, focusing on what is actually open when people need it.
She has also cataloged the restaurants and bars granted extended hours during the World Cup, connecting a global event to local options for watching and celebrating.
Beyond these pieces, her food reporting incorporates lists and recommendations that tap into local taste and curiosity, such as highlighting barbecue picks shared by public figures and industry insiders. In newsletter dispatches under the “Let’s Dish” banner, she folds in roundups like a best breakfast recommendation while updating readers on developments such as a longtime steakhouse closing. Across this work, the emphasis is on clarity: names, locations, hours and specific dishes or drinks are laid out in direct prose, making her coverage easy to act on.
Profiles of chefs, bartenders and industry insiders
A distinctive element of Umholtz’s beat is how often she centers individual chefs, bartenders and other restaurant workers and lets them guide the story. She has profiled a James Beard–nominated bartender by asking where she orders a beer and a shot, using that simple question to explore the bartender’s taste and the bars she trusts. In another piece, she follows a butcher who argues that some Kansas City barbecue is boring, tracing where he prefers to eat and why.
Her story on the creative mind behind Moon Bar focuses on where that person goes for “inspirational” drinks, tying together cocktail culture, creativity and specific venues.
Her coverage of the Social Room, an eclectic Westport bar with a menu heavy on steak and crab legs, similarly foregrounds the people behind the concept while still spelling out practical information like hours and address. In her “On the Menu” series within the Let’s Dish newsletter, she routinely features chefs, bartenders and other restaurant employees and asks them for their best food and drink recommendations, then packages those answers into concise, usable picks.
This approach gives her work a recurring human through-line: Kansas City’s dining scene is presented not just as a list of places but as a network of professionals whose preferences and experiences shape where people go.
Investigations and coverage of bar workplaces
While much of Umholtz’s output is service and feature writing, she also steps into more investigative territory, particularly around workplace conditions in bars. She has contributed to The Star’s reporting on alleged abuses inside two Johnson County bars, shifting her focus from consumer guidance to the experiences of workers and the culture behind the scenes. A separate piece explains how The Star reported on workplace abuses in Kansas City–area bars, laying out the process and findings of that investigation.
These stories show her using her food beat as an entry point into labor and management issues, connecting hospitality culture to accountability and safety.
This investigative work reflects her broader background in various newsroom roles, including breaking news reporting and editing, which informs her ability to handle more complex, sensitive stories alongside everyday food coverage.
In combination with her profiles and guides, it positions her as a reporter who can move from highlighting a bartender’s favorite neighborhood bar to scrutinizing the working conditions in similar spaces. The result is a beat that treats restaurant and bar coverage as both lifestyle reporting and a window into workplace dynamics.
Before joining The Star as Food Insider, Umholtz worked as a food and restaurant reporter for other major media outlets and has held roles as an education journalist, breaking news reporter and editor in newsrooms across the country. That range of experience underpins a style that is direct, detailed and grounded in both the enjoyment and the realities of dining out.
4 more food journalists.
Aaron Guerrero
Aaron Guerrero is head of the digital department at Miami’s Community Newspapers, where he pairs restaurant coverage with community-facing content. He focuses on how Miami-area restaurants evolve, celebrate, and experiment through new concepts, menus, and neighborhood-focused dining experiences. He reports on restaurant openings, such as an Italian food hall at Plaza Coral Gables, new executive lunch menus, and wood-fired Latin steakhouse brunches, explaining what sets each venue apart. He also covers awards, like a Wine Spectator honor for an Italian chophouse, and events that turn dining rooms into social hubs. His bylines extend to features on sports-themed gatherings, civic renamings, local visits to restaurant programs, sponsored community pieces, and official notices. His work is straightforward and descriptive, helping readers and local businesses connect around specific openings, promotions, and dining experiences.
Aarron Fleming
Aarron Fleming reports on how courts, jails and public safety systems work over time. He is a reporter at The Daily Memphian covering public safety, the local court system, suburban news and business developments in North Mississippi. His work follows trials, sentencing, appeals, plea deals and judicial decisions, including major cases tied to Tyre Nichols and rapper Young Dolph. He also covers jail conditions, inmate deaths, crime data, prosecution units, trafficking, shootings and public-order incidents. His suburban reporting examines cannabis businesses, restaurant openings and how commercial growth affects communities such as Olive Branch. Fleming previously covered education in the same newsroom. He uses clear, unadorned prose to explain legal steps, deadlines, institutional problems and the political, commercial and community effects of public-safety decisions.
Alana Al-Hatlani
Alana Al-Hatlani is a food writer and editor who treats recipes, restaurants, and food features as ways to explore culture, community, and the business of eating. She works on the food team at Southern Living, overseeing and contributing to print recipes and reported features. Her pastry-focused, restaurant-tested perspective comes from time in restaurant and bakery kitchens. She helps plan and write monthly food packages, including “The South’s Most Treasured Desserts,” and wrote “8 Summer Recipes Our Editors Make Every Year.” She also writes recipe tips, ingredient explainers, restaurant guides, and reported stories about workers, owners, and communities. Her subjects include regional specialties, dining scenes, kitchen basics, and food industries. Her work has appeared with OpenTable and Yahoo. She reports on the ground, explains techniques clearly, and connects specific dishes and places to larger stories about food and livelihood.
Alana Edgin
Alana Edgin is a business reporter whose strongest focus is food, restaurants and consumer-facing businesses. She works at the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal and has also had work syndicated across AOL and Yahoo News. She covers new openings, closings, expansions and franchise growth, along with retail, health, services, corporate news, data incidents, business support programs and sponsorships. Her reporting includes detailed roundups of new restaurants and businesses, coverage of El Pollo Loco’s opening, and stories on burger trucks, dessert shops, Vietnamese sandwich restaurants and gourmet markets. She also contributes to food and drink reviews, including fall coffee and jerky comparisons. Edgin reports with practical “what, when, where” details, structured comparisons and clear explanations of how offers, partnerships and business changes affect consumers and the local economy.