Wichita will soon have a vintage ‘Cookie Camper’ staffed by a well-known cookie artist
Wichita is about to get a Cookie Camper, and it was all dreamed up, planned and partially executed in just two short days.
The cookie-dispensing camper is the brainchild of Andrea Walters, the well-known Wichita baker who owns Andy Kay’s Cookies and who was featured last year on an episode of Food Network’s “Christmas Cookie Challenge.”
The cookie camper should be on the road this spring.
Walters, whose extravagant and artistic cookies are so popular that she’s perpetually booked with orders, was asked to be a judge at last weekend’s ICT Pumpkinfest, a competition at Marietta Farm. Organizer Adam Bussey, who owns Hot-2-Trot Gourmet Hot Dogs, invited several food truckers to compete to make the best pumpkin dish, and he invited Walters to help pick the best one.
She hadn’t thought much about food trucks or mobile food businesses before then, but suddenly, it all came together in her mind.
“I literally had a light bulb moment, and I thought, ‘How cute would it be to have some kind of camper trailer so I could do pop ups around town?’” she said.
Besides selling her cookies from her home bakery, Walters has also done a few “pop-up shops” at businesses around Wichita, selling the cookies individually for around $3 apiece. But her cookies have become so popular that her pop-ups get a little crazy, and the crowds become a problem for the businesses.
With a camper, she reasoned, she could park around town and do her own pop-ups without burdening a business.
She knew exactly what kind of trailer she wanted, and as soon as she got home from her judging gig, she started searching for one for sale. It took her no time to find the perfect one on Facebook Marketplace.
“It was the one,” she said. “I had to have it.”
She immediately made a down payment and persuaded her husband to drive to Houston, Missouri, with her the next day to pick it up.
It was a 13-foot, turquoise and white 1971 teardrop camper, and it was in great shape. She hauled it home, and soon, she plans to start renovating it so that it can serve as her Cookie Camper. She’s even already made an Instagram page for it — AndyKaysCookieCamper.
“I am asked all the time if I’m ever going to open a bakery,” said Walters, a local mom of two young daughters who runs her bakery out of her home. “I have no desire to do that at all, but I hate that I’m not able to give access to people want cookies all the time.”
Walters said her plan is to park at different places on different sides of town for pop up events. She may take the camper to food truck rallies, but she hasn’t planned out that far just yet.
She laughs about the quick turnaround from Cookie Camper idea to Cookie Camper execution, but that’s just how she is, Walters said.
“I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing,” she said “But when get it in my head, I gotta do it.”
Stay tuned for updates on the cookie camper’s roll out.
This story was originally published October 26, 2018 at 5:38 AM.