Takeout Tuesday - Chagrin Falls Popcorn Shop

This week, we find out what's popping at the historic Chagrin Falls Popcorn Shop, which has been operating since 1949 in a building that was constructed as a grocery store in 1875. While it's well known for its popcorn, of course,  the Popcorn Shop also sells locally made ice cream, custard, coffee, hot dogs and old fashioned candies.  

Our Coordinating Producer Rachel Rood, who has been visiting the popcorn shop since childhood, reached out to Chief Operating Officer Patti Raymond to hear how things are going.

[Patti Raymond / Chagrin Falls Popcorn shop]

This unprecedented moment

In all my years at the popcorn shop, I have never seen anything like what is going on with this pandemic. I actually took a picture of the parking lot yesterday and there were three cars in it, two belonged to employees. 

Everyday we wonder if staying open is financially the right avenue to take. I know that we have adjusted some of our closing hours to reflect poor weather so that we're not open when obviously no one's going to be on foot. 

Staying afloat

We have luckily managed to stay fairly afloat and I know that our Chamber has been very helpful with sharing information available to small businesses. 

If I had to pick a good time for the coronavirus to come to town, March would have been it because we typically run with a skeleton crew over the winter anyway, and then we ramp up our hiring in April and May in preparation for summer. We just postponed the hiring process a little bit, so we've managed to make due with myself, all four of my children actually work here with me. We have our master popper who is working fulltime in our kitchen, and then two other employees.  

[Patti Raymond / Chagrin Falls Popcorn shop]

Social Distancing

With the most recent health concerns, we actually jumped on board and started making some changes ourselves that we thought would keep our staff and our customers a little more on the safer side. We've closed off the majority of our store. Customers can walk in the front door, order their items and pick them up at the cash register. All the popcorn, candy, the bottled beverages, everything is closed off to allow less contact therefore less likely to spread anything. 

Popular Items

As far as the favorite thing to eat at the Popcorn Shop, I'd have to say all of it. Our most popular popcorn, and this took me by surprise, is the original butter and salt. It's like vanilla is the most popular ice cream in America and that blows my mind. But our original butter and salt is by far double the amount of popcorn in sales as any other flavor, almost hands down.

Community Presence

We've had a lot of people say thank you for being open during this time because it's a sense of normalcy in the center of Chagrin Falls. We're right across the street from a walking park, we're right down the road from river walks and people when they're out with their children will come by and grab up an ice cream to go and can take a little bit of happy back home.