Returning to its roots: Popcorn Willy temporarily closed for restructuring
Paul Paterra/Observer-Reporter
A popular downtown Washington eatery has closed temporarily but expects to “pop” back into business in the spring.
Popcorn Willy, 20 North Main St., is getting out of the restaurant business and will instead restructure to refocus on its popcorn products.
“We’re getting back to our roots of popcorn,” said owner Cherie Wolfe. “For years, we’ve done breakfast and lunch and we had a salad bar. When COVID hit, we got rid of the salad bar and simplified the food. It spread us too thin. We couldn’t find help for three years. So, we’re going with what works best for us, which is strictly popcorn.”
Popcorn Willy was founded in 1991 by William Wolfe, Cherie’s brother. He started out by selling his popcorn in the streets of Washington, selling just a few flavors and other snacks. On March 25, 1995, the store held its grand opening and ribbon cutting. The day was declared “Popcorn Willy Day” in the city of Washington.
Cherie Wolfe, who now lives and works in Alaska, said streamlining the business had been discussed for a few years, even before pandemic.
“We were afraid,” the Washington native admitted. “Downtown Washington loved our food so we stuck with it. But it’s time to just do it.”
The restaurant equipment was auctioned online Tuesday. New equipment will be added to create a more efficient operation, she said.
“We are bringing in automated and more commercial-sized popcorn equipment to help the staff produce it quicker,” Wolfe said. “For all of these years, we have hand-weighed and hand-bagged all of our popcorn. It’s very time consuming. So we have a machine coming in that weighs it, portions it and pours it into the bag for us.”
A large kettle is being added to enable the business to create large batches of its candy popcorn, replacing a pot and wooden spoon used to make the syrups by hand.
“Our goal is to pick up more wholesale accounts, but of course keep our retail space and do what we do best,” she said.
The recipes won’t change. Popcorn Willy offers more than 80 flavors of popcorn, some seasonal with the potential to add more.
“I am in (the midst of) heavy planning, writing a whole new business plan, marketing and strategy,” Wolfe said. “In that process we’ll be digging into customers’ brains, seeing what they want and trying to come up with new recipes to give them what they want.”