The road to Herman’s brick-and-mortar venture has been full of twists and turns. From October 2020 to July 2021, she ran a pop-up vegan coffee shop under the name Looking Meadow Coffee Co. out of a remodeled vintage camper. Herman’s original intention was simple: to sell coffee. She had never considered herself a baker and, as a registered nurse, had no professional culinary experience (except for plenty of experience cooking for her family of six).
But Herman has never been one to limit herself: After witnessing the high demand for the vegan baked goods she had begun to resell from the camper, she decided to dabble in their creation herself. Today, a coffee from Looking Meadow would be incomplete without one of her vegan apple fritters or frosted donuts.
After the camper was wrecked in July 2021 — and its replacement unfortunately wrecked just two months later — Looking Meadow set up shop every Saturday at the Tower Grove Farmers’ Market. Herman’s plant-based creations became so popular that she finally decided to open the storefront in Maplewood, nestled on the corner of Lyndover Boulevard and Sutton Place.
“The funny story that everyone knows is that I found a new camper in September of that year, and I brought it home from Kansas City that night, and we were going to move it in the morning for storage, and a young person ran right into it and totaled it within a few hours with me owning that,” Herman recalls. “So I just did the farmers’ market, festivals, that kind of thing, while I figured [things] out. I knew I probably wanted a cafe.”
The process of opening a brick-and-mortar location has been a “whirlwind,” Herman says, but a gratifying one. An avid animal-lover, Herman went vegetarian as a preteen; as time went on, she grew more invested in animal rights and made the leap to veganism. In Looking Meadow Cafe, Herman combines her love of cooking and her passion for “all things vegan,” with delicious results.
“It just feels awesome to have people in here eating my food and saying they enjoy it,” Herman says. “Hopefully, some people who aren't vegan are choosing a vegan meal over eating an animal or eating meat for that meal.”
One of her favorite dishes to cook — and one of her most popular — is her biscuits and gravy, just one of the many menu items at Looking Meadow Cafe that got their start at Herman’s dinner table.
“It's just surreal: Like, ‘Oh, wow, this dish I've made at home so many times for friends and family — people are paying me for this!’” Herman says.
Other notable lunch platters include plant-based versions of a French dip, tuna melt and Cobb salad. Herman says her quiches are also hard to keep in stock. Aside from brunch, sweet treats and the usual coffee-house beverages, Looking Meadow Cafe offers seasonal specialty lattes crafted with house-made syrups: right now she’s offering a Sweet Potato Pie, Oatmeal Breakfast and Blueberry Coffee Cake.
Herman’s love for community — of her own family and friends and of St. Louis at large — shines through in every aspect of Looking Meadow Cafe. The emerald-green walls were painted with the help of one artist friend, while another helped her redesign the logo and another pitched in her woodworking skills. Another, local artist Holly Meinert, painted the delicate pattern of strawberry vines that cover one wall and the elaborate wildflowers that decorate the bathroom; her paintings, as well as those of other local artists, are on display throughout the cafe. In one room, a small stage is set up for the local musicians Herman occasionally brings in. Many of the customers are Tower Grove market regulars who Herman knows by name, and a new band of regulars is already forming around the cafe itself.
“It's so cool that people can be so kind and loyal to us,” Herman says. “It's especially cool when they're not even vegan, either.”
Meanwhile, Herman tries to give back to the community by sourcing her raw materials locally where she can — something she says has been difficult in the colder months. She also hopes to join a food-share program where the cafe could donate its leftover food.
“We're trying to train to keep money that we're spending on vendors as local as we reasonably can,” Herman says. “We want to make sure that if we are profiting off the community, we are giving back as well.”
Looking Meadow Cafe is open 7 a.m. to 3 p.m Wednesday through Monday. For more information, visit lookingmeadowcoffeeco.com or @lookingmeadowcafe on Instagram.
