> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://intelligence.artificialrealitymedia.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # S1E6: I trusted AI to build my restaurant. It cost me $30,000 - URL: https://intelligence.artificialrealitymedia.com/episodes/nikki/ - Published: 2026-07-20T09:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-07-20T09:00:00.000Z - Description: Conscious Kitchen founder Dr. Nikki Siso on the lease AI reviewed in three minutes, the permitting step it missed that cost $30,000, and what she runs now. - Author: Galina Fendikevich - Tags: Restaurants, #Episode, #Import 2026-09-03 05:09 Listen instead: [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/episode/5TwX8rLnDKkne9REQjFCEi?ref=intelligence.artificialrealitymedia.com) or [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/i-trusted-ai-to-build-my-restaurant-it-cost-me-%2430-000/id6780699025?i=1000777268211&ref=intelligence.artificialrealitymedia.com). Holistic health practitioner and Conscious Kitchen founder Dr. Nikki Siso breaks down how AI reviewed her 45-page commercial lease in 3 minutes and saved $1,000 in legal fees, why a missing step in AI's permitting guidance cost her $30,000 and a month of delays, and how she built 15 custom skills in [Claude](https://claude.ai/?ref=intelligence.artificialrealitymedia.com) to assess toxic load in food, homes, and thought patterns. Dr. Nikki Siso is a certified holistic health practitioner and the founder of Conscious Kitchen, a raw, organic, plant-based, gluten-free restaurant in Westlake Hills just outside Austin, Texas. She holds a PhD in holistic health and nutrition with a specialty in peak performance and co-founded the restaurant with her mother, a master chef with 30 years of experience. ## What's working, what's broken, and what still needs to be built - Nikki prompted [ChatGPT](https://chatgpt.com/?ref=intelligence.artificialrealitymedia.com) to "act like a commercial real estate agent," and it caught 8 potentially harmful clauses in her 45-page lease. It then drafted a response letter that got an attorney to review for free instead of charging $1,000. - AI had no structured guidance for restaurant permitting in her area. It didn't know the first step is hiring an MEP (mechanical, electrical, plumbing) engineer, which cost her a month of delays and $30,000 on a contractor she never needed. - The restaurant was supposed to cost $30,000 to open. It cost $85,000\. Nikki was on Facebook Marketplace buying chandeliers for $50 and driving to Dripping Springs to pick them up. - Nikki wishes someone would build an AI tool that connects your blood work and dietary restrictions to a restaurant's menu and tells you exactly what you can safely order. "If you develop this AI tool, come to Conscious Kitchen. I will promote this magic." - AI-generated label designs looked "template" and "generic." A human designer who normally charges $10,000 per client made microscopic adjustments, moving elements a millimeter, adding a thin line, that gave her brand the sophistication AI could not replicate. ## This episode is for you if - You're opening a restaurant or food business and want to know which AI tools actually save time and which ones create more work. - You're a business owner using AI for the first time and want real stories of what works and what falls apart. - You're building AI products and want to understand the gaps in local permitting, restaurant budgeting, and personalized nutrition. ## Chapters - **00:00** Highlights - **00:52** Welcome to Artificial Reality - **01:15** How a phone call and a prayer started Conscious Kitchen - **02:44** Going into business with your biggest trigger. Your mother. - **04:35** The PhD science behind eating for fuel, not for naps - **07:12** What ChatGPT revealed about how preservatives actually kill - **09:20** Starting a restaurant from zero experience with AI - **11:26** The $30,000 permitting mistake AI didn't prevent - **13:56** "Act like an electrician": how AI found the perfect oven - **14:47** A 45-page lease reviewed in 3 minutes. $1,000 saved. - **16:31** Why she switched to Claude and built 15 custom skills - **17:19** AI as a herbologist: healing drink recipes from scratch - **20:12** AI gives the foundation. Humans make the masterpiece. - **22:21** Every health inspection step AI completely missed - **27:33** What Silicon Valley should build for restaurant owners - **34:14** The dream app: your blood work meets a restaurant menu - **37:43** Why AI-generated labels look "Template" not "Elegant" - **42:07** When AI made restaurant budgeting harder, not easier - **44:44** Expected $30K. Spent $85K. - **46:44** Where to find Conscious Kitchen ## Artificial Reality - Every industry we have covered: [AI across industries](https://intelligence.artificialrealitymedia.com/industries/) - For business owners and execs: [what operators actually run](https://intelligence.artificialrealitymedia.com/for-ai-buyers/) - For AI founders and product teams: [what your buyers are asking for](https://intelligence.artificialrealitymedia.com/for-ai-companies/) - Website: [artificialrealitymedia.com](https://www.artificialrealitymedia.com/?ref=intelligence.artificialrealitymedia.com) - In-person events: [luma.com/artificialreality](https://luma.com/artificialreality?ref=intelligence.artificialrealitymedia.com) ## Transcript **Full transcript** **Galina Fendikevich · 00:52** Welcome to Artificial Reality, the reality behind AI adoption. I'm your host, Galina Fendikevich. With me today I have Dr. Nikki Siso, a certified holistic health practitioner and the founder of Conscious Kitchen. Nikki, welcome to the show. **Dr. Nikki Siso · 01:08** Thank you so much Galina, it's such a pleasure to be here. **Galina Fendikevich · 01:10** Tell us about Conscious Kitchen and what made you want to start it. **Dr. Nikki Siso · 01:14** Wow, well. Well, Conscious Kitchen is an endeavor with my mother that began. She had a restaurant in Scottsdale and she is a master, master chef. And it broke my heart that she closed the restaurant and no one would get to experience her incredibly yummy, delicious, healthy food. So there isn't a single other raw restaurant in Austin serving this kind of cuisine. And is actually interesting backstory. I was trying to figure out what's next for me in life. And I actually hit rock bottom trying to figure that out, spent all of my money going in all different directions that weren't actually correct for me, weren't sustainable long term, weren't really me on purpose. And so each one of them I'd go down this rabbit hole of like, okay, I'm gonna start doing AI and supporting and sustainability. No. And then I went down another rabbit hole like meetware that you produced in a lab. What is it called? I'm blanking. Anyway, I went down all of these different channels and avenues that weren't right for me that weren't working or the industry wasn't ready or something was happening and I finally was on my knees begging spirit I'm like please guide me show me the way like what is how am I here to serve how can I be a vessel of service and then my mother called literally heard me my angel center right and she said let's open this restaurant and my whole body said yeah yes **Galina Fendikevich · 02:41** She heard you. **Dr. Nikki Siso · 02:54** Yes, this is right. And mind you, we hadn't lived in the same city since I was fifteen. My mother has always been my biggest trigger, my biggest challenge, biggest teacher, obviously, is what that means. but we hadn't even been in the same space. Like when we when we did come together for v holidays, it was three days till the explosion. Because she has a very strong personality. She likes done things done her way. That's how she creates safety for herself. And she raised a very strong girl, woman, right? So we went to battle, to war. I didn't like to being told how to do things. And and so it was always a really tumultuous relationship. And so to go into full-blown business with my mother was an unbelievable decision for me to actually make with a full yes. In my body. Like that should not have happened. **Galina Fendikevich · 03:55** And you felt it and you did it because now we have Conscious Kitchen here in Austin. **Dr. Nikki Siso · 04:01** Yeah, yeah. It's been an unbelievable journey of healing between the two of us because we've actually had to sit down and have really deep, profound conversations, heart-to-heart conversations of like what are the stories we're both making up about each other? When she does this, when she tries to control things or say how things are are happening or should go. My little Nikki was hearing, you don't know how to do it right. You can't get it right. **Galina Fendikevich · 04:28** And how did the both of you come together to build the philosophy of Conscious Kitchen and open up the restaurant? **Dr. Nikki Siso · 04:34** Right, so we both had studied our PhDs in holistic health and nutrition. So we understood what the body needed to heal and function optimally. Both of our specialties were peak performance. So we actually studied doctors and scientists, and they studied athletes. And so they would feed them one type of diet and then measure their results. So how fast they ran, how quickly they recovered. And based on the feedback, they knew which food was actually. actually converting to fuel and which food was depleting the body. Right. **Galina Fendikevich · 05:10** That's helpful to know, especially for a high performance athlete. W quick tips on what type of food does help with top performance. **Dr. Nikki Siso · 05:19** Right, so first key thing to know, anyone can do this body check, right? When you eat food, after do you feel energized or depleted? If you need to go take a nap, that food is not fuel. That food is not serving your body the way it's intended. Food should give you fuel. That's why we eat, right? And so that is a perfect, perfect way to test on yourself without me telling you the answer. Right? You can test for yourself what works for my body. And it could be a little different for each p person. Some people I was eating red peppers every single day thinking, super healthy. Turns out my body is like absolutely avoid at all costs red peppers. Right. So I right. So I can't tell you exactly what's perfect for your body, but I can tell you based on the studies and based on the evidence that we've seen in the shop, because we guide people through detoxes as well, that when people shift away from processed foods and animal-based foods towards a plant-based diet, studies on countries have shown this as well, where when the GDP goes up, right, the country starts becoming more affluent, they start eating more animal products, they start getting the same diseases that we have here. Heart disease, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, strokes, cancer, diabetes, all of these things start happening when you start increasing the animal products in the food because of the saturated fats and the way the animals are raised on glyphosate, genetically modified foods that are Rich in glyphosate or very toxic to the body that's designed to kill bacteria. They have growth hormones pumped into them, antibiotics because they're on a unnatural diet. All of these things pass through the meat and the milk and the dairy. Right? So when you remove those things from the diet. **Dr. Nikki Siso · 07:07** Suddenly the health starts improving. But also the processed foods, the preservatives, the things that can sit on a shelf for years. I dug into this on chat, GPT actually. I was like, okay, tell me exactly how preservatives are designed. And it gave me this superficial answer. I was like, no, no, no, I want the science. And it said, preservatives are designed to to go after the basically anything that will start rotting on a shelf. what's happening is bacteria is getting to it and d digesting it, decomposing it. So they want to stop that bacteria. They deserve preservatives to go to the cell wall of the bacteria and stop it from absorbing nutrients. So the bacteria starves to death. Right. That's how preservatives work. Well, we rely on bacteria to eat digest our food. So if we're eating foods that are designed to kill off our bac bacteria, **Galina Fendikevich · 07:51** that's not good. **Dr. Nikki Siso · 08:03** Of course we've got gut issues, we've got bloating, we've got foods that don't actually digest and we don't absorb the nutrients. So we're continuously hungry, eating more and more toxic food. **Galina Fendikevich · 08:16** I see. So it's really cool that you have this entire background of holistic health and food as medicine and eating for fuel. You wanted to do something about it, provide this way of nutrition to the residents of Austin, and you started Conscious Kitchen with your mother. What really wanted me to talk to you is that you used AI to help you to get all of the information you need in order to go through the entire Process of even providing this good food, nutritious food in a restaurant setting. And I'd love to hear from you how you use AI when you decided I'm going to start a restaurant with my mother. What how you use AI in each of those steps, what worked great for you, what didn't work so well, and then what you wish would have been built that would have helped you in starting a restaurant so much better. Let's start with what worked. What AI tools or projects. What products or processes did you use when you decided to start a restaurant? **Dr. Nikki Siso · 09:21** Okay, so once the concept is built, right, once we understood, okay, we want to deliver all organic, plant-based, gluten-free, C-L-free food, that concept was clear. Now the next step is location. Find a location that's gonna match that vibe, that's gonna share and express that brand voice and identity. So I wanted like a holistic oasis-looking place. We found a place that has archways, that has a patio, that's in the greenery. Right. So there's a very natural element, very soft, very v inviting. It almost you'll walk into Conscious Kitchen, it feels much more like a spa than it does a restaurant. **Galina Fendikevich · 10:00** It does. And I was at Conscious Kitchen yesterday visiting you. It felt so serene. I didn't realize that I was walking into a restaurant because of how I felt going into it's also right next to a yoga studio, surrounded by plants. I mean, it's beautiful, it's calming, and I was just happy to be there. **Dr. Nikki Siso · 10:19** Thank you. And what the traditional thought process with restaurant is use reds and greens to in entice hunger. And I use pinks and and greens, right? Which is subtly different, but significantly different when it comes to what the general population would or general tendencies would would say, like this is what needs to be a restaurant's vibe. I went with soft colors, soft cushions, everything soft and inviting because I want to calm. Nervous system. For me, when you eat, we were trained also that you want to calm the nervous system so that you're in rest and digest mode. Because if you're in stimulated fight and flight mode, you're not processing. So for me, it was a really a holistic approach. And these things are important to consider when finding first the space. That's step number one. Once you get the concept down, find the location. And that's it takes going to every single spot. And when you walk in, it was like a I knew the minute I walked in, it was like a nope, nope, nope, yes. Right? That would this has the vibe that I want. And then the next step after that is permitting. And getting really clear on what your city's requirements are, both from the development perspective, because we had to install sinks. And thank goodness we're raw, so we didn't need oven. We we actually put an oven in just to make breads and some cookies, because I'm a cookie monster. But we are primarily raw. And so that made not needing stoves, not needing air vents, things like that got taken off the table, thank goodness, because that adds a lot more complexity. We just needed to add in four of the required sinks because you need a hand washing sink, you need a three compartment sink, and then you need a vegetable sink, right? So that was all added into the plumbing. What I didn't know is the steps to to get there. I started with applying for the permit. **Dr. Nikki Siso · 12:16** What I should have done is start with the MEP, the mechanical engineer, engineering, no, mechanical, electrical, plumbing engineer. MEP engineer should have been my first step. And because I didn't know that, it delayed me a month. **Galina Fendikevich · 12:32** Did you use AI to try to figure out your steps? **Dr. Nikki Siso · 12:35** AI didn't have this information for me in that moment. I didn't a that's something that's definitely missing. It didn't have the structured, here are the steps first, hire your MEP, get him in to do the survey of what's currently existing and what are your plans. And what will that require in terms of mechanical, electrical, and plumbing? I had no idea. I'm brand new. I've never done this before, right? so I had to go through, I started with the planning permit department, waited for two weeks for a meeting with them, and then I had to wait two weeks for the engineer to come in. So that backlogged me a month. Had I known to start with the MEP, I would have had him in right away and then submitted that right away with a and then I didn't. I would have saved thirty thousand dollars on a contractor. **Galina Fendikevich · 13:24** That's a lot of money. **Dr. Nikki Siso · 13:26** A lot of money because I thought I didn't know what I was doing. And meanwhile, I was one person away from doing it all by myself. **Galina Fendikevich · 13:35** Wow. Yeah. Yeah. You had mentioned to me before you used AI to figure out what appliances you need, for example. And it helped you outside of the permitting and the contracting to find the refrigerator that you needed. **Dr. Nikki Siso · 13:55** So my two favorite use cases when it came to starting Conscious Kitchen was number one, I said to chat, act like an electrician and find me the most energy efficient, highest capacity, largest capacity and best priced oven I could find. **Galina Fendikevich · 14:17** Right. And AI is really good for that. Yes. Go search the world, the internet. **Dr. Nikki Siso · 14:22** It did a phenomenal job. It gave me three results with like the obvious one that was the best recommendation. And so I got the largest oven I could that was still energy efficient for the best price. **Galina Fendikevich · 14:37** Perfect, easy, done. **Dr. Nikki Siso · 14:38** Easy, done, didn't have to know anything about electricity or oven. Right? That was my favorite use case when it came to setting up Conscious Kitchen. My second favorite use case for setting up Conscious Kitchen using AI was with my lease. It was a 45-page commercial lease. No. **Galina Fendikevich · 14:42** Yes. **Galina Fendikevich · 14:57** That's not fun reading. **Dr. Nikki Siso · 14:59** No, torture. I and I read it. I read every single line, but I put this into AI and I said, act like a commercial real estate agent, read this lease, and then find out what could be detrimental to me in the future going forward if I sign this. And it came up with eight things that said, this is gonna hurt you long run. And then I said, Great, write a letter to my landlord saying what I should change. And what I want the lease to replace that with. It wrote the letter. I submitted that letter to an attorney. Instead of charging me $1,000, he reviewed it in 10 minutes for free. And said, take out line three and line one. You're not gonna get those anyway. You're it's just gonna make you look like a jerk, right? And it said you wanna be, you wanna be someone, a tenant that's not gonna, you know, that wants to work respectively. Done. Submitted that. Got most of it approved. What didn't get approved was fine. I'll accept it. And we moved forward. **Galina Fendikevich · 16:05** You saved a thousand dollars in legal fees, just like that. Yeah. Yeah. That's amazing. **Dr. Nikki Siso · 16:08** Just like that. It took AI p three minutes to review a forty f forty-five-page lease. **Galina Fendikevich · 16:16** Did you did you use ChatGPT or Anthropic? ChatGPT. I'm a GPT girl myself. **Dr. Nikki Siso · 16:19** ChatGPT in that case. Yeah, I had started off on Cha G Pt. Everything I did was Cha G Pt. Now I Claude. **Galina Fendikevich · 16:28** What do you use clock for? **Dr. Nikki Siso · 16:30** For my total toxic load assessment. I built out the skills in that in Claude. It started off as one skill and then it became way too deep. And I broke it out into eight different skills, now 15, specific to what are the toxins in the food in the home, what are the toxins in the food, what are the toxic thoughts that lead to dis ease in the body. And each one of those had a bank of wisdom and knowledge and peer-reviewed studies that required a depth that one skill couldn't read through that much code. mode efficiently. **Galina Fendikevich · 17:06** Very cool. Yeah. I also recall you mentioned you used AI to help with recipe creation for your restaurant. Correct. How did you use AI to do that? **Dr. Nikki Siso · 17:18** Yeah, so I wanted to create a line of holistic drinks that are on the verge of tinctures that support the body in healing. And without making any medical claims, because we're not allowed, I said act as a herbologist trained in how to use herbs, natural plants that we have on this planet that support the body in healing. And Create a variety of recipes based on the things that I wanted to target. liver cleanse, hormone balancing, thyroid support, right? Mole detox. All of these things are standard, very common challenges that a lot of women and and humans face these days. And so it created a a beautiful list of recipes. And then my mom and I went to work at crafting them and tasting them. And we developed and then we added and tweaked and made them perfect. So that they're really delicious as well as nutrient dense and and supportive in in healing. **Galina Fendikevich · 18:23** Had your hormone balance tincture or drink yesterday and it was delicious. Right. It didn't feel like I was drinking something. There are some holistic drinks where it tastes a little too like the earth or too much like grass, and it it's just not a pleasure to drink, but your drink was delicious. **Dr. Nikki Siso · 18:43** Thank you. We did our job. Yeah, and that's full of shisandra berries and V-Tex and incredible herbs and flower essences that support a woman's body in bringing back to balance the hormones back to balance. And then we, you know, we added a little extra lavender, right? Or we added a little extra essences that supported in tasting, because it came out really tart at first. And so we needed to soften it a little bit, maybe with some coconut powder, or right? So we added some natural elements. that will support it in tasting. Because I don't believe in suffering. Healing should not be suffering, right? Healing should be a delightful journey back to health. Why does it have to be torturous? Like remember the medicine you used to get as a kid, and you're like, God. It doesn't have to be that way. It can be delightful. We have a flu shot. We call it a flu shot. And it's full of very powerful herbs that support the body and stimulating the immune system and fighting off any pathogens or right. and so there's some fresh garlic in there. Raw garlic can be pungent for some people, but we combine it with apple, we combine it with things that make it more gentle to **Galina Fendikevich · 19:30** Yes. **Dr. Nikki Siso · 19:55** digest but still powerful enough to heal. **Galina Fendikevich · 19:59** Ukrainian and we love our onion and garlic. And anytime I feel a little bit under the weather, I always know onion, garlic, nature's remedies, and then maybe I'll do the DayQL NyQuil. But I really like that you use AI to get started, but AI does not have taste buds. And it doesn't know that adding a lot of garlic into a flu shot drink without masking the strong taste with something sweeter will create a better experience for the person that drinks it. So I really like the story. You took AI to use the information out there, create the base ingredients. And then you use your own judgment, your own experience, your own taste buds to craft the end product. Correct. **Dr. Nikki Siso · 20:46** Yeah, and that's a mastery, right? That's my mother's been master chef for thirty years. So she knew right away she can smell it and go, no, this needs something, right? And she'll she'll she'll add it before we even make the brew. She knew. So between the two of us, we we crafted these beautiful be beautiful concoctions. but yeah, so AI is the starting point. **Galina Fendikevich · 21:09** Yes. **Dr. Nikki Siso · 21:10** AI gives you the foundation, the base of knowledge and wisdom. You can use it that way. And then you add the human element into it to make it a masterpiece. **Galina Fendikevich · 21:19** Very well said. That is exactly the human and AI partnership that I'm trying to surface for people in the world because with so many headlines on AI taking over jobs and AI doing jobs end to end specifically, we live in such a complex and nonlinear world. Our jobs are complex. AI cannot taste the food or the drinks that you create. And it really does take to tango here. And you're such a perfect perfect example of having this beautiful dance, using AI to create something and putting it out into the world that's your passion. Thank you. However, AI is not perfect and there is there are some moments that it can disappoint you or it doesn't give you the right type of information, such as during the permitting process, which you mentioned, if only you had the right permitting process, the right department, you could have gotten started so much faster. So how was that experience And where did AI not exactly fulfill that requirement? **Dr. Nikki Siso · 22:22** Yeah, AI was missing the step-by-step guidance that I really needed. Surprisingly, because normally you can ask AI to say, hey, give me step-by-step guidance, but for some reason it didn't know. Start with the ME MEP, right? Start with that person coming in and scaling and scanning your business and scanning the space and making sure that it's giving you the specs and the docs that you will need. It only could go to the health department and say, okay, here. You're the you're gonna have to fill out this application, here's the link, right? But it didn't tell me, okay, you're gonna have to pass all of these things. It didn't know, it didn't know that I'm gonna have to have specific now COVID documentation in my bathroom. Or, right. I now still have to have a printed document saying if you feel any flu symptoms or fever or right, to contact or to let me know. **Galina Fendikevich · 23:10** So weird. **Dr. Nikki Siso · 23:21** And take the day off. Like I have these are the specific instructions now that need to be over the sink in the bathroom and over the sink where you wash your hands in the kitchen. I didn't know that. I didn't know all of the steps that the health code requires. even if e their website doesn't list it. The the inspector comes in and she has a a nice form that goes checks, checks, checks, checks, all these things. I wasn't aware of. **Galina Fendikevich · 23:47** Why isn't that form in AI's not listed? **Dr. Nikki Siso · 23:51** Everyone's life's so much easier. So much easier. I didn't know that she's gonna come in and her most priority was to check that the fridges are at a certain temperature and that the h the water gets to at least 110\. Those are her checks. That the that's what's gonna get past your failure. I didn't know that. I the these are things that I had to learn and have the inspector come in and say, okay, I'm gonna have to come back. **Galina Fendikevich · 24:17** Which is frustrating for you because if only you had known this could have gone quickly. Yes. **Dr. Nikki Siso · 24:23** Our sink in the bathroom didn't have hot water. It just had cold water. I was like, but you're washing the hands. You got soap. No, it needs to get over 110 degrees to technically do a good enough job of washing your hands. I don't know anyone who washes their hands with 110 degrees. It's hot. It's burning scrolling, but those are the codes that we have to abide by. So I had to get a little water heater, external water heaters, pumpless. I didn't know that was an option. yeah, it has it, there's no actual Tank, tankless, that's the word. it just goes through this little square device, heats up the water, comes back out the sink. Super easy, $115\. I could have installed I and then I didn't know I could install that myself. A plumber wanted to charge me $250 to install it. And I was like, there's one hose. I can figure this out. Sure enough, it goes the hose goes in through the thing, and another hose goes out, and you put it where that hose went in. **Galina Fendikevich · 25:20** Easy **Dr. Nikki Siso · 25:21** Took me fifteen minutes to do and he wanted two hundred and fifty dollars to do it. So suddenly I'm a plumber but but these are the things that AI had I known, like here's my spec sheet of like what I'm gonna need to pass health inspection, would have been gold. **Galina Fendikevich · 25:40** And it sounds like you need information from federal guidelines, state guidelines, and local guidelines and what you need to pass, permitting, health, all of that. **Dr. Nikki Siso · 25:49** Yeah, I think if you just stuck with the local, the local is already concerned about federal. Is my understanding. But again, I'm this is I I think the local, if you pass their inspection, they're making sure you also pass federal. Yeah. But it is region by region. So Austin is very different than Westlake Hills. And even the permitting department. I originally went through the Austin's permitting site and it was a nightmare. my God, the list was even 10 times longer than then when I went to Westlake Hills, because it's a smaller city, smaller municipality, much easier, much less rigorous, super much easier to pass compliance and get the permits for the construction done faster and easier. **Galina Fendikevich · 26:35** How would you have known that? **Dr. Nikki Siso · 26:36** No, and not only that, you can't even put you have to put City of Westlake Hills, because if you just put Westlake Hills, you're taken to Austin. So I'm filling out this massively long thing, freaking out because I'm doing it by myself. And then I talk to the guy at Westlake Hills, and he's like, No, you're on the wrong part. Put city of Westlake Hills and you'll get a different application. **Galina Fendikevich · 27:03** Who would have known and it would have been helpful if an AI could've helped you fill out those applications. **Dr. Nikki Siso · 27:07** 100%. Because I ended up giving up right at the last minute, one dot one plan away. Had I known that step, I would have saved thirty thousand dollars. I wouldn't have hired a construct a contractor. I wouldn't have needed one. **Galina Fendikevich · 27:22** You really could have reinvested that thirty thousand back into the business. Yeah. For something else. Yeah. And I know we're getting a little ahead of ourselves, but on what Silicon Valley could build is maybe a local based regulation permitting process tool. Wherever you want to have your location, it helps you actually create the checklist of what you need to know. Yeah. **Dr. Nikki Siso · 27:46** Yes, that would be incredibly supportive. And then one thing we didn't tap on was I used AI extensively for market research. Who's our target audience? Are they, is it just raw vegans? Well, there are like four in Austin. We'd be out of business very quickly, right? But we're also 100% gluten-free, we're 100% organic, we serve a lot of communities that have health challenges that require them to actually know what goes in their food. And sadly, we live in an age where we can't trust everything that's on the shelf. I wish for the day that we can walk into a grocery store and they've actually done their job as a grocery store owner and only allowed products in that are really truly safe for the body. And I wish that we come to the day where Products are produced with that level of integrity. There aren't hidden toxic ingredients in our foods or in our products that we bring home, right? But sadly, we're not in that day and age. and and we so we as conscious kitchen are doing our absolute best to know what is in all the products. And we use primarily fruits and vegetables and nuts and seeds, right? So we're getting single source ingredients that for the most part we can trust. Now we're buying organic but we're going to the grocery store and that little water that they're spraying to keep the food looking, you know, healthy is full of chemicals. **Galina Fendikevich · 29:13** You can't trust anything nowadays. **Dr. Nikki Siso · 29:15** You can only do the best you absolutely can. But reading labels is the first and foremost starting place. You need to read the labels and a lot of times there's little trick words like natural flavors. Natural flavors are not natural. If they were natural, it would say blueberries. **Galina Fendikevich · 29:33** Very good point. **Dr. Nikki Siso · 29:35** Right? Yeah. Behind that natural flavors can be all sorts, a whole list of toxic ingredients. Same with fragrances, right? Fragrances can be 200 chemicals. They can list it behind fragrances. preservatives don't even have to be listed. Sometimes they are, right? Tokeferals and there are little words here and there that you can kind of spot and be like, there it is. Got it. Back on the shelf. Right. **Galina Fendikevich · 30:02** Yes. How do you use AI to create the marketing for Conscious Kitchen? And how do you educate people about holistic holistic food and food as medicine? Right. **Dr. Nikki Siso · 30:14** So I have a skill my friend developed called Market Sauce, and it is a deep dive into everything you need to know about your target audience. Who they actually are, what the size, how they want to talk to, how do they want to be talked to, what are their biggest concerns. All of this kind of research was available for me, thank goodness. And you can do it without this market sauce, but my friend has done the deep dive into putting it all together so that he's created a kind of chief marketing. AI officer for you. So you put your concept in and then it prints this full document for you. So AI can be used for that purpose. And then Yeah, who are we talking to? really important and because each person's gonna care about different things. Someone who's plant-based or naturally a vegan by choice for ethical reasons is very different than someone who's got health conditions that they're like, okay, I've been told that if I lean plant-based, I will have better results with my energy and a right, my body. and then that's also different from someone who has celiacs who just can't eat gluten and is bummed that they don't get pasta anymore, right? And we have to teach them, my goodness, you can make pasta from zucchini. And you can make breads that don't have any sprout any oats or any gluten in it whatsoever. So we have alternative for them. We make lasagna. And we make the wrap from zucchini and avocados and red bell peppers. It's incredibly delicious. And it it tastes like a layer of pasta. **Galina Fendikevich · 31:48** That sounds really good. It's **Dr. Nikki Siso · 31:50** Phenomenal. Our falafels, we we use that same wrap to make the falafel wrap and there instead of a pizza bread that's normally being used. So people, it's learning that there are alternatives, learning that there is an option for people that are struggling with some of these conditions. And and quite frankly, it's normal for them to be like when someone comes in with celiac or is gluten insensitive sensitivities to our conscious kitchen, I'll be like, you're welcome. Your body's supporting you. Because the way these things are produced in our country is toxic. They're spraying wheat with glyphosate. Again, designed to, it's a pesticide. It's designed to kill the very things that we rely on to digest our food. So if your body's saying don't eat gluten, great. It's helping you out. Because now you're gonna have a gut microbiome that is actually going to be happy and survive and thrive because you're be you've been taught to stay away from these things that are actually toxic. **Galina Fendikevich · 32:50** It has been such a minefield for me to also find things that I can eat. I've been very deliberate about paying attention how I feel after I eat certain foods. And now I have a better understanding. Do I want to take a nap? Do I feel energized and ready to have a power afternoon for the work that I have to do? and I actually have used AI, [Gemini](https://gemini.google.com/?ref=intelligence.artificialrealitymedia.com) specifically, to To go through the nutritional guides of some of the restaurants I order. Now I order a lot. most of the time I'm cooking for one or eating for one. So I and I don't have a lot of time to cook. And so I order a lot of the time and thank goodness there are a lot of nutritional guides nowadays at restaurants. But it's still such a process to Work with Gemini, take all those nutritional guides. I have had blood work done as well to see what is happening within my body, pair that with an AI to say, okay, if I'm going to eat here, what can I even eat? Yes. Or should I be eating here? Right. Because this could be detrimental to my body. Long story short, I can't eat anything except a raw potato at this point. Because it seems like no matter where I go or where to eat, it's toxic for me or it's dangerous or my body is not going to react in a good way. how do you think AI can be used for someone to come into a restaurant such as yours with their personal information about how their body reacts to certain food to be able to decide what dishes to order? **Dr. Nikki Siso · 34:30** This would be magnificent. If if anyone out there is producing an AI tool that will create a meal plan that specifically links to restaurants menu items that would serve them, or the might menu, or if they could like walk into a restaurant and they could get a list of like what to avoid in that shop. that would be gold. Gold, gold, gold. We have people that come into Conscious Kitchen that don't go to restaurants anymore. They cannot eat out. They just they just and they choose to. They choose to not eat out because they don't trust anything anymore. And it all makes them feel sick. And their bodies it it's great when your bodies become that sensitive. People think it's a a curse. It's actually a massive blessing when your body is so clear that it talks to you that way. And then it says, Hey, don't eat that, we're gonna put you in bed. Right? that that's serving you to to know what long-term repercussions for your health, if you can realize it that quickly. Right away, you're learning, okay, no, this is knocking me out. Right? But imagine if you keep ignoring that and you do that every day for the rest of your life, your life is going to be shortened. **Galina Fendikevich · 35:36** Right. And it's such a mental load to keep track of I can eat this, I can't eat this, okay, I'm at a restaurant, let me go through my list of things that I should stay away from versus safe foods. What are what are the dishes on the menu? So to have an AI to be able to just do all that thinking for me would help a lot. **Dr. Nikki Siso · 35:56** Please, if you develop this AI tool, come to Conscious Kitchen, find me. I will promote the this magic because everything on our menu should light up green. some people have allergies to walnuts. We you do walnuts, so there might be some things that still don't work for people. but it would be a magical thing to create and and so useful for so many people. And I think hopefully inspiring for restaurants to actually make a difference and choose foods that will serve their clients. I think that that level of integrity I I pray for. And and an app like that would actually support this planet and humanity and moving in a direction of more integrity, more care for what they produce. I mean we already have this, right, with AI tools that you can scan the barcode for beauty products and it says toxic. **Galina Fendikevich · 36:46** That's true. I have used some of those and they have barcode scanners for packages in grocery stores. Right. So there's a app called Bobby Approved that I really like. So I scan and it will say whether something is Bobby approved, it's good for you or not Bobby approved and it will tell you the ingredients and it's so good. But again, it just it feels like walking in a minefield in this earth, whether it's a restaurant or a grocery store, of this is bad for you and this is bad for you, this is bad for you, and this is bad for you. So I'm it's really encouraging to see that you started Conscious Kitchen as a first step to educate and provide an option for people who want a more holistic food option. Nikki, how did you come up with the label design for your restaurant? And did you use AI for that or not? I **Dr. Nikki Siso · 37:29** Exactly. Yeah, it's really important. **Dr. Nikki Siso · 37:39** Wish this is something that I really wish AI could have supported me with a print ready label. I didn't even know you needed the borders, right? I wrote out using [Canva](https://canva.com/?ref=intelligence.artificialrealitymedia.com), I'm very well versed with Canva, so I created what I thought looked pretty decent as a label, like my general idea. and then my friend saw it and he goes, no, no. And he helped me find a really high-end quality brand design guy that's been Doing this for 30 years, he was magnificent. He normally charges $10,000 a client, but thank goodness he's he's opened his books now to like startups and he really wants to serve like the individual sole proprietor. He always used to work for corporations. And so for a thousand dollars, this man took what I designed and made it profound in minutes. I mean, he probably took it 24 hours with it. But he's that level that he can move quickly. And he sent me back the first thing he sent me, I was like, done. Yes. Like there was nothing to change. It was beautiful. And the night and day difference between what I designed and what he designed. I wonder if AI can do. **Galina Fendikevich · 38:56** does have image generation capabilities. What made you feel like I know you also tried using AI. What made you feel like when you gave the same set of instructions to AI versus a veteran brand designer, the expectations and the output? **Dr. Nikki Siso · 39:14** Yeah, the AI generated a very template looking output. It wasn't elegant, high vibe, classy designer. It was this has been made for a generic brand, very like a little bubbly, like it just didn't it didn't have the elegance and the sophistication that I was really looking for. **Galina Fendikevich · 39:41** Which says a lot. And it goes to the point of everybody expects AI to be this revolutionary. When you input a prompt and it gives you an output, it'll say something just completely fresh and unique, and you would have never thought about it. But the way that AI is built, it's all historical. It's looking back. It is looking at all the huge corpus of information and synthesizing it, all of that, to produce results for you. So If it might even seem fresh to you, you know that it's based on other people's works and something that's existing. Humans are the only ones capable of creating something new, unique, which ironically then goes back into the AI models to train them. Right. But if you use AI, you have to know that it's more of like a synthesis and reproduction of existing works. Whereas you, you wanted you're building a new brand, a new business. You wanted something new that only a human Can give you. **Dr. Nikki Siso · 40:42** Yeah, wonder, because they've they've got trained eye on how like they he moved things over a millimeter, right? And put a very thin line somewhere. Or like he did little microscopic adjustments that made it look popped, like gorgeous. And and I don't know that AI has that skill yet. I think it really is as running off template style formats. And so if you want to stand out as a brand, I think a human element would still be needed there. Maybe that will change. **Galina Fendikevich · 41:20** Maybe one day. But you did use AI. I know Canva has some AI tools and existing templates to kind of get started, put something together, which is a recurring theme. You use AI to just get started. Right. But it is nowhere near the final product. And someone, a person needs to step in and work with that to get to the final. **Dr. Nikki Siso · 41:40** And even even adding the print ready option. Like there should be a like a a link. make this print ready. Cause now I need if colors go to the edges, I need to have a bleed section. I didn't know that. How do I how would I know this? Right? I a designer needed to show me that. **Galina Fendikevich · 41:57** Right, and AI doesn't doesn't think necessarily upfront how you're going to use the design. It just gives you a design. As a business owner, I also know that finances and budgeting are a big part of the process. Did you try to use AI for that? **Dr. Nikki Siso · 42:05** Yeah, the **Dr. Nikki Siso · 42:16** I did. I actually got on chat and I attempted because I really wanted to know the cost of each recipe. I was adamant like my mother's like, no, no, no, we make money. She's like old, so you're like, don't worry. And like it really like and I was like, no, no, no, my brain needs science, I need clearer numbers. And so I got on AI and I wanted to create a tool where I could just put in, okay, we buy a bag of almonds, a pound of almonds for $24, but each recipe takes one cup. Of almonds. So it needed to know the conversion from a pound to a cup. And then each slice is only 12, you know, you get 12 slices in a pie. So it needed to be able to convert from pound to cup to potentially spoon if it's spices, right? Or half a quarter to teaspoon. And so I I tried to create that full chart breakdown so that I can adjust as the price of almonds goes up and down. I can adjust the price, and then it adjusts it. I had one hell of a time getting it to actually fill in the spaces on the [Excel](https://www.microsoft.com/microsoft-365/excel?ref=intelligence.artificialrealitymedia.com) chart. For some reason it did not want to fill in the blanks. or it would just like duplicate and it would be the wrong values. And now these things ha exist where you can pay software. They they have these AI tools for a hundred and fifty dollars. You can use their software and it will calculate it for you. But it was $150 a month. That like on a tight budget, that adds up for continuously doing that. So That was not well orchestrated. For some reason it was a major challenge and it did not do what I wanted it to do. It would have taken me many more hours to perfect it. **Galina Fendikevich · 43:56** So AI is creating more work for you than if you just did it by hand yourself. Way more. **Dr. Nikki Siso · 44:02** Yes. And then forecasting was a complete like guessing game. I had no idea. And this might not be something that can be resolved because every restaurant's very different. We are not a flower child, right? That has 50 orders for lunch or even more, right? We're we're very nuanced, very small but small batches. so I don't know if forecasting could ever be perfected, but budgeting I could have had a lot more support with. I didn't know the cost of all the fridges and the sinks and the insurance and the right all of the different things that I would need. I wasn't at all well versed. We thought it was gonna cost 30,000 to set up. It cost 85. **Galina Fendikevich · 44:50** Way more than you were expecting. Way **Dr. Nikki Siso · 44:52** more than they were expecting. And granted that's a still a very small budget. Most people would be like, that only cost you 85,000? Like, yeah. but I was on Facebook Marketplace finding chandeliers for $50 and driving to Dripping Springs to get them. Like I was working it. But there were a lot of things I had no idea about. I had no idea it was gonna cost that much more. **Galina Fendikevich · 45:16** So it sounds like something that Silicon Valley could help build is a very specific tool for someone that wants to open up a restaurant, to have localized permitting processes, to have accurate budgeting items, which includes everything needed for a restaurant, including insurance and furniture, estimates, but also localized to your area because having a restaurant in Westlake around Austin, Texas is different. Than in New York is different than in California. Right. and something to really support you in the decision making process. I'm very similar. Sometimes I just just tell me what I need and I'll do it. And I just want someone to tell me what I need to do. I'm happy to do all the work, but don't lie to me or don't mislead me. And AI can be very inconsistent that way, which is which is almost by design because AI is not built to be a deterministic system, it's a probabilistic system. So every time you if you ask the same question, it will give you a different response. So it's it's this tension between taking a system that is probabilistic and moving it towards a little bit more deterministic to give you the information that you need, especially when it comes to something high stakes such as finances and budgeting, so you don't end up spending way more than you had originally allocated to get your restaurant off the ground. Right. Correct. Yes. Nikki, thank you so much for your time. If somebody wanted to come to your restaurant or connect with you, what is the best way? **Dr. Nikki Siso · 46:50** Pleased. Yes, at Conscience Kitchen. We're in Westlake Hills, just outside of Tech Austin, Texas, about a mile and a half from the downtown. It's the sweetest spot. You can come, sit, co-work, enjoy delicious, healthy, organic food that you can enjoy and trust that we're using all healthy ingredients. And sit with my mama and I. We'll we'll support you with any challenges you might have. We're we're there for you. It's really a holistic detox center as well as a nourishing place to come and enjoy food. **Galina Fendikevich · 47:20** Thank you. And for more conversations like this, you can follow Artificial Reality on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/?ref=intelligence.artificialrealitymedia.com). Thank you. **Dr. Nikki Siso · 47:30** Thank you.