Victoria foodie starts sleep podcast in which she reads local restaurant menus

A new local podcast has launched in which a Victoria-based food lover lulls listeners to sleep by reading restaurant menus in a low and slow voice. 

Julie Gauthier, also known as Julie G, loves food. People in Victoria may know her best as the visionary behind one of the city’s most popular pop-up food vendors, Hero Sandwich Bar. 

The last year has been a busy one for Julie G, as she decided to close the sandwich making chapter of her life as well as quitting her day job.

Now, she has been finding meaning through her podcast, ‘Pepperoni Pizza Dreams.’

“I actually left the government in mid-September so that I could focus on launching the podcast,” Julie G told Victoria Buzz. 

“I’m sort of all in and I’m loving it.”

She admitted to having thought about opening a brick and mortar sandwich shop, but was reluctant and ultimately didn’t because of how risky the restaurant industry is in Victoria. 

With the podcast though, she still gets to share her love of food and local cuisine with listeners, while helping those who have a hard time falling asleep have restful slumbers. 

“A few years ago I had some pretty bad nighttime anxiety which was having, obviously, an impact on my sleep and I started listening to sleep podcasts,” said Julie G. 

“But I wanted it to be different than what was out there. Oftentimes, what was out there was a host reading an old book or someone leading a guided meditation and those were things that I didn’t want to do.”

She knew then that she wanted to start her own sleep podcast, but it was important that the content be something that was meaningful to her. 

“The idea came to me one night when I was in bed, reading a menu on my phone and I was like, ‘oh, I could read this,” she stated. 

“I know this sounds nuts, but menus are one of my favourite things to read.”

Once she had her idea, and she decided to leave her day job, she got busy researching and compiled a long list of themes for podcast episodes, along with restaurants she wanted to cover. 

To date, she has 12 episodes released, with a new one dropping every Tuesday. 

Last week’s episode is titled, “The adopted hometown (Victoria B.C. – Part 1).”

On it she reads the menus of two staple Victoria eateries, along with a new restaurant she wants to see succeed: Wind Cries Mary, the Vicious Poodle and Rabbit Rabbit.

“Rabbit Rabbit I had recently been to with some friends for brunch. They’re a newer restaurant, so I figured it would be nice to read that menu,” explained Julie G. 

“For Wind Cries Mary, my friends and I have this tradition of going to wrestling, 365 wrestling, and it usually ends at around 10 or 10:30, so we might as well go for some drinks afterward and their late night Birdman menu.”

She added that she loves going to ‘Drag Brunch’ at Vicious Poodle on weekends, so she also read the brunch menu from there. 

Julie G has ambitious plans for 2025, with new episodes dropping every Tuesday. One of her planned episodes will be a part two to “The adopted hometown” Victoria-based episode. 

However, she says she hasn’t quite decided on what menus she wants to cover for that one yet. 

Some of the other episodes she has planned are: “Airlines,” reading economy and business/first-class airline menus; “The Sopranos,” covering menus from real-life restaurants featured on the show; and “All aboard!,” reading cruise ship restaurant menus.

The episodes released thus far range in length, from 25 to 52 minutes, but Julie G says her hope is that listeners fall asleep as soon as possible after pressing play. 

All episodes can be found on Spotify, or any other podcast platform, as well as the Pepperoni Pizza Dreams website.