Corks, Cooks, & Books

When you’re exploring a small town, your checklist might include a great restaurant, a charming wine bar, and an independent bookstore. In Rock Hill, South Carolina, you can visit all three at once. All it takes is a trip to Corks, Cooks, & Books, a one-stop shop for anyone craving local flavors.

It started with the books. In 2017, Mindy Kuhn, owner of the small press Warren Publishing, published a cookbook by Shonali Thomas, whose catering business and local TV appearances have made her a culinary fixture in Rock Hill and the surrounding area (including nearby Charlotte, North Carolina).

“We became friends right away,” says Thomas. “We would drink wine, and we’d talk about our endgame. We both wanted a place to call our own.” Soon enough, they decided to fuse their interests. “We didn’t know if people would embrace the idea of a restaurant/wine bar/bookstore, but they have,” Kuhn says. “I hear people all the time say, ‘I can’t believe you got all my favorite things in one place.’”

No matter which part of the concept you prefer, Corks, Cooks, & Books will likely leave you happy. Bookshelves line the sunny indoor dining area, and along with the authors from Warren Publishing, Kuhn stocks them with genres as diverse as literary fiction, young adult fiction, thrillers, and American history. The wine bar, meanwhile, not only features a wide selection of affordable bottles but also boasts a long list of local craft beers. Thomas notes, “I keep the wine list moving. I like to rotate things in and out so that people can be surprised by things they haven’t tried before.”

The best surprises, though, are on the food menu. Thomas has a knack for pushing familiar dishes into unexpected places, so that a meal manages to be both comforting and memorable at the same time. Take a recent offering, the drunken cherry and prosciutto flatbread: It’s immediately recognizable as a thin-crust pizza, but the wine-soaked cherries and the honey-infused ricotta cheese add tangy sweetness to the salty cured meat. The Greek tacos deliver both the succulence of gyro-style chicken and the decadent satisfaction of a fried pita bread shell. There are also menu items for those looking to indulge, like the Tenderoni taco, a fried flour tortilla filled with sriracha-honey mac and cheese and a fried chicken tender.

Along with the excellent flavors in her food, there’s a playfulness to Thomas’ approach that makes it stand out. Even in something as straightforward as a steak burger, you can expect a little treat like pig candy (or candied bacon), and if you look carefully, you’ll spot a QR code for a secret menu that includes both specials and riffs on the restaurant’s staple dishes. “Shonali is just incredibly creative,” says Kuhn. “She’ll come in and say, ‘I had this dream,’ and then you know she’s gonna come up with something good.”

Laughing, Thomas adds, “I do have dreams about food. I’ll put it in my phone, and the next day I’ll come into the kitchen and say, ‘Guess whaaaaat? We’re gonna try something!’ We’ll make it, and we’ll either just have a good time trying it, or it’ll be so crazy that it ends up on the menu.”

Both women want to spread that adventurous spirit. That’s why they love welcoming everyone from book clubs that fill the outdoor patio to trivia teams that roll in for a night of music bingo. “Every time the bell on the front door rings, I get excited to run over there and see who it is,” Kuhn says. “I love meeting people who are as into the idea of this place as we are.”

What to Order at Corks, Cooks, & Books:

Drunken Cherry and Prosciutto Flatbread
Big enough for two, this twist on a thin-crust pizza has a memorable blend of salty, sweet, and
earthy flavors.

Purple Tacos
Come for the tender marinated beef with Peruvian spices, stay for the homemade blue-corn
tortillas, which are delicious on their own.

Black-Eyed Pea Fritters
Topped with caramelized onions and chipotle aioli, these crunchy croquettes make black-eyed peas feel elegant. Like the purple tacos, they’re part of the menu’s extensive gluten free selection.

Drive Time to Corks, Cooks, & Books

30 minutes from Charlotte

1 hour, 15 minutes from Columbia

2 hours, 45 minutes from Charleston