05/06/2026
“The first time I went to the Hunter Gatherer was on a Sunday, and it was technically closed,” Jessica Oliver writes.
She had only been in Columbia a few months when she and her friend Adam Cullum rode past the brewery on their bikes and noticed something happening inside. They parked, stuck their heads in, and found a party.
“The room was full of this buzzing energy,” Oliver writes. “People were yelling, music was playing, and there was a hotdog eating contest going on.”
That accidental visit became one of those memories that gained traction over time because so many connections came from it. It was the day Oliver first saw Henry Thomas, who worked at Hunter-Gatherer and would eventually join People Person, along with “lots of other faces who would over time become dear and familiar to me, and who make of the fabric of the community I now happily call my home.”
A year or so later, Can’t Kids played Hunter-Gatherer with Neapolitan Children, the band of Oliver’s now-husband, Joe Chang. More nights followed on that block, along with many more memories.
“I locked my keys inside my car on numerous occasions and sat inside talking to Marty and Erica and the other staff while waiting on the locksmith,” she writes.
Around that same time, Cullum introduced her to Aaron Graves and the wider Fork and Spoon family through the potlucks that became central to so many friendships and memories.
“Aaron and the Whales crew taught many of us about community,” Oliver writes. “We bonded over music, food, and shared joy.”
For her I Love My Friends session, Oliver chose “Looking American” by The Choir Quit, written by one of her favorite Columbia musicians, William Starr Busbee.
“I’ve loved ‘Looking American’ and every version of it since I first heard it,” she writes. “It’s smart, a little despondent, comically grandiose, and a total bop.”
