COOKS KITCHEN RSS

Life is too short to wear cheap shoes. This could be the unofficial motto behind Cooks Flips, a custom footwear company founded by Travelers Rest native John Walker. The idea behind developing a line of robust, well-made and comfortable flip-flops began about 10 years ago during a surfing excursion Walker and a friend went on to Nicaragua, where an epic flip-flop fail left him with painful memories of scrambling over jagged rocks. The experience stuck with him, especially as someone who grew up going barefoot as often as he could get away with and who views wearing flip-flops as the next-best...

John Walker has done everything from making kayaking videos to running a barbecue business, and now he’s finding his stride as a “fobbler,” or a flip-flop cobbler. Walker, who earned a degree in environmental policy from Sewanee: The University of the South, was growing tired of raising hogs and cooking barbecue in Travelers Rest when he starting contemplating ways to reuse all of the feedbags on the family farm. “I wanted to recycle them, and I made a pair of shoes, and it all started there,” he said. About four years later, Cooks Flips has been a hit at farmers...

Anyone who cooks can tell you the ideal kitchen produces no waste.This is a theory that presents itself in the form of footwear —100-percent recycled, custom fit, durable, and handmade in the USA— Marietta, South Carolina, no less. It all began with a barbecue business and Marietta local John Walker. His idea for footwear sprang from curiosity and frustration with what to do with feedbags for the hogs.That curiosity coalesced around a couple of different questions: What could Walker make that would tap into his two life passions of fishing and surfing? And was there a way to make something that...