The rebirth of the American newsstand

0:02Sophie Grove:Hello and welcome to The Stack. This week's episode is a celebration of the American newsstand. The country is experiencing a boom in independent magazine stores from Portland, Maine to Austin, Texas. We'll speak to some of those owners and also preview Confect's new magazine and latest book as well with our very own Sophie Grove. Enjoy the show.

0:45Sophie Grove:From Midori Housing, London, this is The Stack, 30 minutes of print industry analysis, and I am Fernando Augusto Pacheco. In this week's episode, we head to the United States to speak with some of the owners of the coolest independent magazine stores across the country. We first head to Austin, Texas. Tomomags, founded by Vico Puentes, started back in 2015 in Houston and opened their first physical space last December in Austin. The venue has already become a place for the community and magazine lovers. Puentes tells me how it all started with a restored blue school bus with plenty of magazines inside.

1:23Sophie Grove:Here is Vico with more. I was obsessed and still am with Popeye and Brutus and Casa Brutus. And in one of their articles, they featured a Japanese bookstore out of a blue, like a navy blue band. And the moment I saw that, because I had already been exploring the idea that I wanted to open up a shop, it was a libel moment. And I called a friend and I hope everybody in the world out there has this one friend that you can pick up a phone and say, hey do you have a school bus and he says yes i have a school please borrow it and i rented it from him with the promise that i would return it i would essentially pay monthly like rent the bus and a week later stripped out all the seats built shelves in it like magazine shelves and i started going to art book fairs to pick up independent publishing got a hold of a couple distributors and fill up the bus and maybe like in a month and this is in October of 2015 started parking at coffee shops museums universities and mostly on weekends and some uh weeknights because I still had a full-time job and before you know it I mean people were following the bus around and it was fun mind you Houston is a very hot city so October November December January February was perfect.

2:43Sophie Grove:And then once the heat started coming in and to watch all your papers start warping a little bit, it's a little bit of a panic. But yeah, that's how it started. And it's a combination of making a dream accessible because at that point of a passion project, let's call it that, getting a commercial lease was not in the works. But the best inspiration to start this dream coming from a magazine, I feel like it's, again, all these continuous thread of continuing to learn and dream through publishing. Let's talk about the shop now. So finally, you have your kind of bricks and mortar space in Austin.

3:21Sophie Grove:It looked great. Tell us where it is. I mean, tell us a bit more about the neighborhood, the location for those perhaps who never came to Austin, even though I really want to go to Austin now. Yeah, we'd love to have you here. And something about me is I tend to have a contrarian nature. So if everyone is telling me you should open in this part of town, I start asking why. and I start asking where are not people going and is there an opportunity there? So we happen to be downtown and our downtown has evolved in the last few years and it's kind of gaining back the same traction that I had pre-COVID.

3:54Sophie Grove:A lot of working, a lot more living. And I went into a block that really was very quiet. And there was an art gallery that is three doors down from me that it's buried and the type of shows. And Philip, who is the owner of the gallery, has a similar point of view where we're local, but we think globally and we bring it back to local. So it felt like the most natural space to be in. And it's an old building, maybe like late 1800s, and that's old for here in Austin. However, I do want to capture the fact that the way that I started in Houston with the bus, there was no way that I was going to come into Austin.

4:37Sophie Grove:And I have been living here six years already, but bringing Tomo to life in Austin without the bus. So that's essentially what I did first. I was like, I'm going to get another bus. And the same friend that I rented the first one, I'm telling you, you call him and he has three more buses. Of course. You know, just like everyone does. And he says, yes, I'll have it. I bought it this time because one of the things that I've learned in my first round was that it was crucial. It was crucial in going where people are. And I think even the publishing is having this amazing renaissance. And I've been for the last 10, 15 years pushing for that actively.

5:15Sophie Grove:There's still a lot of work to do. So for me in Austin to come in, I wanted to do the same thing where I'm like, if there is a coffee shop that everyone is sitting out there on a Saturday morning on their phones, let me pull up with magazines. magazines. And before you know it, three weekends later, people are sitting out, hey, did you get the new issue of so-and-so? And now they're sitting out there with a coffee and reading it. So that was my first must do for Austin is to bring the bus back. And far better looking than the first one, which had a lot of my own manual labor into it. So we've done the bus here.

5:51Sophie Grove:And then the space, like I said, is downtown. And the blog has changed drastically. And we're very lucky because we're surrounded by hotels. So we do get a lot of tourist traffic and Austin does draw a global scene creatively too. We have amazing creative studios, architecture firms that have offices in other parts of the world. So it's been a nice little retreat. And it's, for me, extremely rewarding when people from all over the world come in and they tell us like that we're one of their favorite parts of visiting Austin or that they wish we were in their city. And a lot of it has to do with it is a magazine shop at its core, but a lot of it, I feel, is more of a connecting space.

6:34Sophie Grove:And it shows in not only the magazine that we carry, but some of the products. And also we do have a coffee bar and that always helps. And then it's a tiny team of three of us. And we just have this sort of commitment that everyone that comes in, we are going to welcome in. I can sense that it became a little bit of a hub in that sense. what are some of your best sellers? I'm curious because, I mean, Tomo, you were inspired by an article at Popeye magazine. I wonder, do you sell Popeye? I sell Popeye and that is its own designated spot in a shelf that I built specifically for Popeye. In the world of Popeye, Casa Brutas and the range is there.

7:14Sophie Grove:I mean, I feel like we probably have rotated about 1 ,200 titles in the last six months. and the way my home office looks like, which is full shelves of Monaco, full shelves of Popeye, dating back many years. And then, you know, you will find me, and this is a perfect example. Two weekends ago, I did a 36-hour trip to Mexico City. And Sunday morning, I'm sitting at the living room of the editor of, there's a magazine called 192, 192. And on my way back, I'm bringing back the shipment for the shop. So you can certainly find the things that you will find in other newsstands and other magazine shops.

7:52Sophie Grove:But I tend to connect with a lot of people and either work directly, get the shipments in here or go pick them up at myself. I mean, that's how dedicated I am. And it's been, again, really confirming and rewarding when other people in the industry come in and they feel like it feels like you've been here 30 years. It feels like the stuff that I'm finding, I'm not finding in other shops. But that, again, goes back to that curiosity that I've always had. And people are identifying with it. And regionally, we carry some local publications. We're extending our newspaper game. And there's a huge reason for that, that hopefully I'll get to share a little bit more.

8:25Sophie Grove:And then the other part of the concept store, which is what I call, when I'm buying for the shop, I essentially imagine sitting at a desk and putting a magazine in the center and what else is around it. and the practice is you're slowing down. And I'm hoping that it's every day you get 30 minutes to just take a break from computer or phone and open up a magazine. That's sort of the approach that we've taken. And the behavior is essentially for me is like, how do I get people to slow down, be motivated and pay attention to their environment? Because that's sort of where we're solving, not the symptom, but the cause, where we feel like we're burnt out, we feel like we're running around all day long, we're inundated with information, you can tune it out.

9:14Sophie Grove:The answer has been there for centuries. So it's sitting there in our shelves, on our tables, huge lover of art. And I typically tend to very graphic, illustrative art, portraits, colorful, in a way that balances that slow. You can slow down, but it doesn't have to be completely mellow, neutral space either. Thank you, Vico Puentes there. For more information, go to tomomags.com.

9:48Sophie Grove:From Austin to Portland, Maine, we visit Bode, an independent magazine shop founded in 2025 by Stacey Mitchell, whose background in design strategy and love of independent magazines shaped the shop's collection. She tells me about the space and how she's optimistic about the future of the new stand in the U.S. Here is Stacey with more.

10:11Vico Puentes:So before the shop, I was working in consulting for city governments, actually, to support them in designing better new services for the people living and working in their cities. And I absolutely loved it. Like, it was a dream job for me. It was impactful, important, but also creative. And I was there for a few years. We moved from New York City to Portland, and I was still doing that work. Continued to love it, but it was not here in this place, in this community. And so that's the impetus of the shop. I wanted to create something that was almost an extension of that work, but just in a slightly different way, but here in where I was living, where my son was growing up, and where we were.

11:00Sophie Grove:And you know what? You're very right, because I feel that a newsstand or let's say even a bookshop, they are a service to the community. You know, they are kind of a meeting place. Wouldn't you say so?

11:11Vico Puentes:Absolutely. Yes. And it's just like I was helping cities think about really big, important problems. For example, how they might revitalize their downtown business district. And so this shop and opening it up in the middle of the Arts District in Portland feels very connected to that work, just from a slightly different perspective.

11:31Sophie Grove:Give us an idea of the space. So remind us, so it opened last year, right? So it's still fairly recent. So it is at the Arts District, you said. So tell us about the size. I know you have already very beautiful wood behind you. I like those little details as well in the shop.

11:48Vico Puentes:Yeah. So I had been looking for spaces for quite some time. And a lot of the storefronts here are very big. And so I knew I didn't need a big space with magazines. You can cram a lot in a small amount of space. So I saw this beautiful storefront. It has gorgeous historic windows in a historic building in the middle of the Arts District, right around the corner from the Portland Museum of Art, catty corner from a beautiful Congress Square Park, right across the street from the State Theater. So I felt like because I view magazines as very artful pieces of work, that this in its location itself would be a really nice fit.

12:28Vico Puentes:And then the space itself was one of the smallest storefronts that I saw. It had been under construction and vacant for like 10 to 15 years. So people were excited that something was going into it. And because it's small size, it's a relatively reasonable monthly rent. So I jumped as soon as I saw it.

12:48Sophie Grove:I'm getting very excited this year in particular about the U.S. and print, because I think for a long time, those shops, they were kind of dying. It was quite hard to find a place to sell magazines. But I think there's people like you. And, you know, when I see in other states, I spoke to someone in Texas the other day. I think there's something exciting going on. What do you think?

13:07Vico Puentes:Absolutely. Yes. Like, I think the old, like when I was living in New York, I could get every magazine under the sun. in New York, and I actually didn't know anywhere else I could get them. And that is not the case anymore. I think some smaller cities are realizing how great magazines are and how great they can be for people and how the community is really rallying around them. And so I yes, absolutely. I'm seeing shops. Someone just came in the other day thinking about doing something similar in Chicago. And someone asked me for a phone call that is thinking about doing a stand on a beach in Vermont.

13:45Vico Puentes:And I was like, yes, the more magazines out there, the better for sure.

13:49Sophie Grove:And, you know, especially let's talk about Portland, because although I never been, I always have this image of being a very cultural city. So a place like this, I mean, it was meant to work in a place like Portland, right?

14:02Vico Puentes:Yeah, I thought so too. I know a lot of people's stories are similar to mine and that they were either from New York or they were living in LA or Chicago and then things happened or they had a connection to Maine. They had come every summer when they were young. Or like my husband, he went to high school in here in Maine and always wanted to come back. And so that's what kind of drew us back. And so there's a lot of stories like that. And therefore, people that are living here are doing such interesting things and are always making and building something new or getting together a new community.

14:37And it's just like a very entrepreneurial place.

14:41Vico Puentes:It might be a little hard to find at first, but it is here and it's really thriving and beautiful.

14:47Sophie Grove:Tell us about the size. How many titles do you have? I mean, I can see behind you. I can, I saw, I see a confact there. Of course you have Ken Folk, Rolling Stone, Mojo. I mean, you name it. There's, it seems quite a nice variety.

15:01Vico Puentes:Yes. We started with about a hundred titles as we were ramping up and wanting to learn and we're well past, I think 200 now and also sold out of a bunch, which is really cool. I always, wanted a wide variety of categories, because that's what I really like about magazines, you can go deep into like, food, you know, like I have one about the olive, you know, and there's a lot of like niche communities and hobbies. And so I always really love that. So I knew I wanted a wide range. And people keep coming in with really good recommendations. Like we have a huge list going, I could have 1000 in here.

15:38Vico Puentes:And I feel like it's just because we're a small team, and we're still learning. That's almost the only reason why I don't. But yes, it's a wide variety is always going to be here. And the other rule that I made for myself was that I want magazines that do something really well, whether that's like they're known for their writing or they're known for their concept or it's just really beautiful, like beautifully done or printed on this wonderful paper. Like I want it to feel, like it just needs to be a high quality piece. and so when I started with a lot of those a lot of people were coming in being like wait do you have this one that I like really I used to get every week and I have time to read it this week so that's when more of like the common titles came into the picture.

16:24Sophie Grove:That's fantastic do you have a favorite I mean what do you like to read on your pastime?

16:31Vico Puentes:Right now I actually really like footnote. They have a wonderful concept where they start the magazine with a small short story. And then the whole rest of the magazine are artists and writers like kind of responding and being inspired by that short story. And when I heard about the concept, I was like, that is amazing concept. And then when I saw it in person and felt the detail and the care and the beauty that was in it, I was like, wow, this is amazing. This is a wonderful piece of art.

17:01Sophie Grove:And Stacey, are you using the space also for events or, you know, tell us about how else to use this kind of wonderful space?

17:10Vico Puentes:Yeah, we're starting to use them for events, which have been so wonderful. We've had a couple release, like launches for new issues. One of the editors from Amateurs Magazine actually grew up here in Maine. And so when he was back in town, we had a launch for their new beautiful issue. I have a first poetry reading this coming Friday from a faculty at Kobe College. He publishes some beautiful poetry, including a publication from the college as a class project. It's really a really cool initiative. So, yeah, we're starting to ramp those up. And it's really been one of my favorite parts. The people coming in and the like spilling out into the sidewalk and chatting and like flipping through.

17:56Vico Puentes:And it's just it's the best.

17:59Sophie Grove:Thank you, Stacey. For more, go to BoldMagz.com.

18:11Sophie Grove:And finally, as Confact is one of Stacey Mitchell's favorite magazines, why not welcome Confact's editor, Sophie Grove, to the show? Not only the autumn issue of the magazine is out, it is a Japan special, but also their first book, titled Confact, A Guide to Generous Hosting. Sophie joined me in the studio.

18:30Stacy Mitchell:It involved kind of really trying to nail down some of the philosophies of the magazine when it comes to entertaining and hosting and just that sense of welcome and belonging and the kind of authenticity of all of that, but also aesthetics and beautiful things. And so it's the Comfect Guide to Generous Hosting.

18:51Sophie Grove:Lovely title, by the way.