Stephanie McKinney is hoping the recipe for success is, well, recipes. She has a love for cookbooks that she’s excited to share with the St. Louis community through Vanchovy, a mobile bookstore operating out of a 1992 Honda Acty Kei van that hit the road this spring. Vanchovy has been turning up at pop-up events around the StL, offering a unique inventory of vintage and used cookbooks.
McKinney grew up in the Kansas City area. She inherited a love of cooking from her family. “On holidays, we’d spend all day in the kitchen,” she recalls. “It was a major thing that we did together. I became an adventurous eater, and I love to try new recipes. I’ll cook anything as long as I have the ingredients.” That interest in recipes grew into a passion for cookbooks. McKinney found that reading them offered inspiration beyond simple ideas of what to make for dinner. “I love the stories they tell, offering insight about the author’s history and culture,” she says. “I can just sit and read a cookbook all the way through. When my friends ask me what I’m currently reading, the answer is usually a cookbook.”
While visiting San Francisco, McKinney had the opportunity to visit Omnivore Books. She was thrilled to discover a store devoted entirely to books about food. “I came home with three or four cookbooks, which were not fun to fly with, but it was great,” she says. The experience stuck with McKinney. While cookbook stores are more common on the coasts, it was not something easily accessible in the Midwest. On a road trip to Colorado last summer, she started brainstorming with husband, Graham, how to bring the concept to the St. Louis region. “We came up with the idea to test it out with a mobile business because there would be less risk than a brick-and-mortar store,” she explains. “We would be able to gauge people’s interest without committing to a pricey lease.”
With the idea for Vanchovy in place, McKinney now needed two things: a van and an inventory of cookbooks. For the latter, she made the choice to start with a selection of vintage and used books. “If you have an old cookbook collecting dust, you never know who might be interested in using it,” she says. “There are so many great cookbooks out there, and a lot of them are out of print and can’t be purchased anymore. On that Colorado trip, I was able to buy 15 at a great used book store in Breckenridge.” McKinney continued collecting cookbooks, searching Facebook Marketplace as well as hunting at garage and estate sales. She also started receiving book donations, allowing her to build an inventory she estimates to be between 300 and 450 cookbooks.
When it came to finding the van in Vanchovy, the search was a little more difficult. McKinney had a few different ideas, including using a travel trailer. Graham suggested looking for a Honda Kei van, a compact style of Japanese van. In order to be legally imported to the U.S., Kei vehicles must be more than 25 years old, so McKinney began the hunt for a vintage van to match her vintage collection of cookbooks. “We looked online every day for around a month and were able to find one in Pittsburgh,” she notes. “It’s a little weird because it’s a manual on the right-hand side. I was nervous to drive it and make a fool of myself, but I can handle it well now!”
Vanchovy had its first big event this spring at May’s Night Market. In order to further capture a real bookstore experience, McKinney also stocked items like Big Heart Tea and Fishwife tinned fish—two women-owned businesses she’s excited to support. “I sold around 50 books that night,” she says. “There were some really interesting finds, including a book from the 1960s about ice sculptures.” Currently, McKinney is working with publishing companies so Vanchovy will be able to stock new cookbooks in addition to used ones. She also hopes to start organizing cookbook dinner clubs and other events around Vanchovy. “I’m excited to see where this goes,” she notes. “I know most of us pull recipes from the internet, but it’s great to see people are still interested in having an actual book in their hands.”
To learn more and find out where Vanchovy will be next, visit vanchovybooks.com.
Photos: Bill Barrett
