Poppee's Popcorn Inc

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Influenced by his brother, a popcorn maker in Chicago, Illinois, Walter McGuire began making his own popcorn in the family home during the 1940 ’s. Happy to give up his job at the dry cleaner, he began selling popcorn to local schools. When Walter passed away in 1948, his wife, Edythe, opened a penny candy store to complement the popcorn business. She named the store Poppee ’s after her father. The 800 square foot building was located on Woodward Avenue in Lakewood, Ohio, across from Harding Junior High School ’s Baseball Field. Mrs. McGuire ’s products included popcorn balls and her own special-recipe caramel corn, which were made in two 32 oz. poppers. Walter and Edythe ’s son, Tim, returned from the Navy in 1961. When Edythe remarried and accompanied her husband overseas, she asked Tim to manage the operation in her absence. It didn ’t take long for him to see the potential of the wholesale popcorn business, and a few weeks turned into a career! He started by selling popcorn to movie theaters, making better popcorn than they were serving. In 1968, the original building was expanded to 2400 square feet. Through the sixties and early-seventies, Poppee ’s Popcorn continued to add private label and wholesale customers. In the early days, Tim would pop the corn himself, load up the station wagon and make deliveries each morning. His personal commitment and dedication to the business paid off as new customers were attracted to the delicious popcorn, caramel corn and cheese corn. With the success of the business, Tim was forced to find new accommodations. He understood that the penny candy store front was not the future of Poppee ’s and relocated the company to Clark Avenue in Cleveland in 1975, where he operated until the mid-1980 ’s.

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