The idea of opening Binding Agents, an upcoming cookbook shop in the Italian Market, came to Catie Gainor during a fever dream. “Like, actually, I had a fever — I was not well,” the 34-year-old told Billy Penn.
Sick in bed and gutted over missing a work meeting she’d spent weeks prepping for, Gainor was scrolling through social media when she saw a post by Book Larder — a Seattle-based cookbook shop, and a concept she felt would equally complement Philadelphia’s culinary scene.
“If I want this to be here, then I should do it,” Gainor realized. Support for the idea from her husband, friends, and family further encouraged her, but the deal was sealed once she came up with the name Binding Agents.
“It was like yeah, now I really have to do it because I can’t let that go to waste,” she said. “Not to toot my own horn, but I do really love the name.”
Pun aside, the name speaks to Gainor’s love for books — “there’s nothing like a physical book … the binding and paging is part of that too, and the smell” — along with the connective power they share with food for bringing people together.
The store will open at 908 Christian Street, formerly the waiting room for the once-adjacent Sabrina’s Café, a 350-square-foot space that Gainor is currently converting into “a place to duck in and feel cozy and comfortable, I hope.”
Soon-to-be-installed shelves will be stocked with cookbooks in a variety of themes, styles, and formats, along with other titles that “center and celebrate food — fiction and nonfiction,” Gainor said. That includes children’s books, “which can really influence the relationship they have with food in their lives.”
While the store will always keep a collection of classic, regularly referenced cookbooks in stock, the focus will be more on a diverse range of newer titles “showcasing a perspective that I think is contemporary and relevant now,” Gainor explained. “So, people should expect to see books from the last few years and ones that have just come out, as well as a small selection of [titles] that really have made waves and sort of changed the way that we cook from the past.”
Beyond inventory, Binding Agents will host Silent Book Club-style evenings, with extended hours for visitors to shop, enjoy snacks, and bring their own cookbooks to annotate together or read “in community, in sort of quiet contemplation but not alone,” Gainor said. Author events, as well as partnerships with larger venues for cooking classes, are also in the works.
Ahead of a planned October opening, Binding Agents will be participating in August 24’s Philly Bookstore Crawl with an in-store pop-up featuring a selection of 2024 titles, as well as a build-a-monster style workshop for writers aged 8-14, co-presented from noon to 3 p.m. by Cosmic Writers and Molly’s Books & Records. “It’s not food related,” Gainor said of the workshop, “but it’ll be really fun.”
Visitors to the pop-up can also pick up Binding Agents bingo cards, its rows completed by finishing a book or following a recipe, with bingos to be submitted in an online form for a chance to win store discounts or swag from the first of September till the end of the year.
Gainor will also be participating in the 2024 series of Cookbooks and Convos, highlighting female chefs and authors from Philly’s culinary scene, this fall.
In the meantime, efforts are focused on finalizing the shop, with Gainor working to “reimagine the space while retaining the character of what makes the Italian Market so special.” Other than being the neighborhood she calls home, an Italian Market location, she said, was key due to “just so much history, and such a supportive community of business owners, patrons, and community members and residents.” She’s recently launched a crowdfunding campaign to help get her through the last leg of the redesign.
“My to-do list is troubling to me,” Gainor laughed. “But we’re making great progress.”
For more information, follow @bindingagents on Instagram, or visit bindingagentsphilly.com.
