This is topic Pop Corn Question ! in forum Ground Level at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.


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Posted by Rene Ferron (Member # 4674) on 03-23-2008, 11:31 AM:
 
Here goes:

At the end of the night should the staff at the concession stand do:

A) Trash all the left over Pop corn.

b) Leave the left over pop corn in the machine to be mixed with a new batch the next day.

I would really like to have your input on this question with a bit of explanation to your answers.

Thank very much.
 

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Posted by Allison Parsons (Member # 2728) on 03-23-2008, 11:47 AM:
 
I've worked at theaters who've done both. I personally think mixing day old popcorn with a fresh batch in the morning is DISGUSTING. Most people enjoy movie-going because of the popcorn, just because it's the first set of the day doesn't mean those customers have to suffer and eat a mix of hot and cold/stale/gross popcorn.

My advice is try to not over due it when poping corn for the last set, and pitch the rest.
 

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Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 03-23-2008, 12:11 PM:
 
As Allison stated above:

The goal here is to lose as little of the popcorn at the end of the night that you can. Don't keep it for the next day. Just make sure that your not over popping at the end of the night.

When I worked for Loews back in the late 80's early 90's they had us take a day in the week and pop up large quantities of popcorn and bag them up. Then use the bagged up popcorn through out the weekend. It was the worst practice I had ever seen. Popcorn never tasted fresh and the customers always complained it was stale and it looked bad on you when you brought those big bags out and dumped it in the warmers. There was no popcorn popper in the stand. It was off in another room some where. No fresh smell of popcorn in the air just the stale smell from where it popped earlier in the week. That is one of the many reasons why when Cinemark came to town business went to shit and eventually Loews left the state of Kentucky.
 

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Posted by Rene Ferron (Member # 4674) on 03-23-2008, 12:25 PM:
 
It's just that where i work now they are keeping the pop corn for the next day... and the Supervisor Lady was told that you can keep a batch of Pop Corn for up to 5 days, YAK ! In my mind i would just trash the left overs and clean the machine and make a new batch the next day. I will try to talk with the head manager to see if something can be done. We have 2 machines and they haul the Pop Corn that are left over from one machine to the other, but come to think of it if they never completely empty the machines some pop corn in there could be weeks old !!! YAK !!! OMG !

Anyways i don't think that pop corn is that expensive to begin with. If anyone has more feedback it would help me with management as i will probably print this post and show them what people in the business think of this. Event the management in here are new to the theater business so a little advice would help.

Thx
 

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Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 03-23-2008, 12:43 PM:
 
Definitely keep the popcorn popper clean. All it takes is 10 or 20 minutes, depending on the type of popper, to clean it.
 

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Posted by Jim Bedford (Member # 4) on 03-23-2008, 12:53 PM:
 
Here in our low-humidity atmosphere at 8750', I can feed you hour old and day old warmed popcorn and you can't tell the difference. I can't either. We don't even have to bag it to keep it tasting like it was just popped, just leave it in the warmer. This will not work in high humidity locals.

Now this doesn't obviate cleaning the popcorn machine and kettle daily. Birds love old popcorn, dry or soggy.
 

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Posted by Rene Ferron (Member # 4674) on 03-23-2008, 12:59 PM:
 
Here where i live the Humidity is around 80% right now. So i guess that keeping the old Popcorn is not a good idea.
 

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Posted by Allison Parsons (Member # 2728) on 03-23-2008, 01:10 PM:
 
No matter what the humidity, there's a big difference between hour old popcorn and day old!
 

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Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 03-23-2008, 01:17 PM:
 
Don't forget:

c) Put it in a large garbage bag and offer it to customers leaving the last show.

I'm only half-joking here.

--jhawk
 

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Posted by Joe Elliott (Member # 4006) on 03-23-2008, 01:52 PM:
 
The first theatre I started at (an indoor) used to pop popcorn on Thursday nights for the whole weekend. We did have a warmer in the concession stand however. If it was kept warm and dry, then we tended to have more complaints that it was stale when it was freshly popped than when it was 4 days old! When I managed a drive-in however, I would only have them pop up as much as was needed for that night. We would still get complaints that it was stale when it was comming straight out of the popper. Must be something in the water in Kansas City.

Difference being, that at the Drive-in, we had a large gas popper that only took a few minutes to warm up. At the indoor when I was an usher, the electric popper there took a long time to get that first batch going, and each batch was slooooowwww. There was no way they could have kept up with a busy Saturday nights demand, so they had to pop ahead. If you can keep up with demand, pop fresh. If not, keep it warm and dry.
 

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Posted by Jeremy Weigel (Member # 4208) on 03-23-2008, 02:50 PM:
 

quote:

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No matter what the humidity, there's a big difference between hour old popcorn and day old!

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quote:

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I have had customers that have requested the fresh popped as they saw it coming out of the popper and then told me that it didn't taste right, because guess what, it still has moisture from being popped and is "chewy" until it has had a chance to dry out in the warmer!

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quote: Chris Slycord

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Now filling directly from the popper as it shoots out the corn obviously gets the complaints that the stuff tastes funny.

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quote: Jeremy Weigel

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Think about how long the popcorn in those decorative tins at the store have been in storage at a warehouse until it hits the store shelves.

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quote: Darryl Spicer

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....and it tastes like cardboard too.

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quote: Allison Parsons

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Or you could always donate it to a homeless shelter.

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Ah, come on. The homeless have it bad enough as it is. Now you wanna give them food that you won't even eat?
 

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Posted by Sean McKinnon (Member # 612) on 03-23-2008, 05:46 PM:
 
Popcorn right out of the popper is very chewy and tends to cause to cause people to explain that it's stale. Popcorn also has a long shelf life if stored properly. When I worked for Loews we had to pop almost everyday of the week and store a lot of it in bags for the weekend. Even with both of our 32 oz. Cretors kettles running constantly we would not have been able to keep up with the demand if we did not pre-pop a lot of corn. In fact once one of our kettles broke and we had to have popped corn trucked in from another theatre or we would have run out. Every theatre I have worked at has pre-popped corn because it is more cost effective to pop more at one time than run the popper a little everyday, also if your popper breaks down you can still sell popcorn if you have some pre-popped. You can't use any old trashbag though, you need to use special sanitary bags intended to hold food. As far as what is left in the bin at the end of the night it depends if it is full then we would bag it and save it if it is mostly crumbs we would toss it.
 

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Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 03-23-2008, 06:59 PM:
 
It's standard practice with many circuits to pop in an upstairs room (or even off site in some cases), trash bag it all, and bring it down to warmers when needed.

Also, some of these same theatres would never leave it in the warmer overnight. They rebag it and clean the popper and/or warmer every night at closing. Tasted fine, no complaints.

Although, showmen know that part of the "sell" is smelling freshly-popped corn and SEEING it come pouring out of the kettle.
 

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Posted by Sam Graham (Member # 2889) on 03-23-2008, 07:12 PM:
 
I don't have a problem with theatres that use day-old popcorn mixed with freshly popped popcorn so long as the end product is hot. I once got popcorn at a drive-in that had sat overnight and it wasn't even warm. They hadn't even turned the warming light on. They were just shoveling day-old cold popcorn out of the thing.

It's the theatres that reheat hot dogs that gross me out. And yes, I know a manager who did this night after night until they were turning green.
 

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Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 03-23-2008, 08:06 PM:
 
The fact that this is even a point of discussion demonstrates why the mainstream exhibition industry is tanking right now.

Consider the following:

- Popcorn costs almost nothing to make and theatres sell it at high prices.

- The income from selling a single bucket of popped corn will more than cover the cost of making several batches.

- Customers rightfully expect a top-quality product for the prices that theatres charge for corn.

- Some (many?) (most?) people prefer the taste of fresh corn and also like to see and smell it coming out of the popper.

Therefore, I've always felt strongly that saving leftover corn is false economy and that theatres should worry more about making sure that corn is popping whenever customers are in the lobby than about trying to save (literally) a few pennies by re-using leftover popcorn.

I truly do not understand why AMC, Regal, and the rest don't make an effort to provide really good popcorn. My experience has been that the chains always have the worst tasting corn. Don't they realize that they will sell substantially more of it if they can provide a consistently high quality product? And that maybe their customers won't feel cheated after they spend $4 for stale popcorn?

If I owned a theatre, I would explicitly tell my employees to not worry about how much popcorn got thrown out each night and, instead, to be sure that the customers could hear and see corn popping between showtimes.
 

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Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 03-23-2008, 08:27 PM:
 
To the best of my knowledge both Regal and Cinemark here pop all their corn fresh in poppers at the concession counter. I've never seen them use bagged corn. The poppers are almost always going between shows. For what they charge, the corn damn well better be fresh.

I have no complaints with the taste of their product, but I wish they offered nutritional yeast topping. Regal did for a while, then stopped. I think Cinemark did too.

Speaking of hot dogs, these days theaters here seem to have quite a ritual for serving hot dogs. The concession worker has to glove up and test the temperature of each dog with a thermometer. If the temp is too low, they try another dog. I was behind someone buying several hot dogs yesterday and the process was so slow the line I was in came to a dead stop for about 5 minutes. They finally asked the customer if it was ok to nuke the dogs in a microwave because that was the only way they'd get them up to temperature quickly (it was the first matinee round and apparently the dogs weren't warmed up completely yet).
 

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Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 03-23-2008, 09:43 PM:
 
And I know for a fact that the AMC I'm at pops throughout the day. I can't say that ALL of them do but I know they do.

Though having a bit of a corn allergy I have no idea if their's is good; I don't feel like having my hands and face itch like mad or get the shits.

quote:

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I prefer fresh popcorn, the same way Mr. Spicer does, from the popper as it taste much better,

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Methinks you didn't pay attention to what he was responding to. I was commenting on the fact that if you don't let the stuff dry for a few seconds it tastes really chewy instead of like normal popcorn. That's why lots of people train their staff to (even when someone wants fresh) to dump it out, then start scooping. That way people won't complain about the chewy consistency.

Though if you and him like it chewy then all the more power to you.
 

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Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 03-23-2008, 09:49 PM:
 
We'll quite often have a little popcorn left over. If we do, I turn on the warmer by about 2:00 in the afternoon and we've never had a complaint about that "old" popcorn. In fact a friend of mine (who I make deliveries to on my day job) always wants me to bring him a bucket of "last night's popcorn" because he thinks it tastes BETTER the next day.

I agree with comments above about the humidity...we're in a very dry climate here so that's probably why it works for us.

We clean our machine thoroughly every night after popping is finished. The thing is 11 years old but looks like it rolled in here last week, thanks to the efforts of my staff (and some credit should probably go to Lynn and me for making them clean it properly "or else!")
 

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Posted by Sean McKinnon (Member # 612) on 03-24-2008, 09:39 AM:
 
I swear that it does taste better the next day if stored properly. I think its psychological that people think right out of the popper is the best. At one of my old LCE theatres the popper was in the main stand so that you could smell and hear the corn popping but it was in the kitchen in the center of this center island stand (Star Theatres Prototype Design)so that it could not be seen. Whenver I had to cover a concession station and someone ordered popcorn and I went into the kitchen and got it right out of the popper (where the customer could not see) they would complain, accuse it of being stale, and ask for new popcorn. When I filled the bag with the day old popcorn from the warmer they would be happy. As I said there is also no way in really busy megaplexes to only sell what you popped that day, you would run out! We made sure to use good warmers though so that the popcorn was always very warm.
 

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Posted by James Westbrook (Member # 3690) on 03-24-2008, 11:24 AM:
 
Cinemark answers the demand with more poppers. My current stand has 3 of them, with space for a fourth (occupied by a Disani refrigerator ). Business warrents the concessionists fire up the 2nd popper. "But then we have TWO poppers to clean!" No, they don't. The janitorial service cleans the poppers now. NO EXCUSE not to fire up that second popper.
 

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Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 03-24-2008, 12:19 PM:
 
I will agree that if you only have one popper and three or four warmers then popping in advance was the desired method to begin with. With Cinemark it is the opposite. They have in our case 5 poppers in the stand no warmers. The poppers are the warmers. They want you to pop the corn fresh everyday. My case for the pop in advance for warmers is that it always looked bad if customers saw you refilling the popcorn warmers with popcorn out of a big bag. They would get this strange look on their face and question you as to where the popcorn came from and how long have you had it. Especially if you had no popcorn popper in sight.

As for the way I like the corn. I like it just after it is popped and sifted in with the other corn.
 

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Posted by Sean McKinnon (Member # 612) on 03-24-2008, 01:07 PM:
 
If you have no bins then how do the customers see the product? The advantage of popcorn is that it touches all the senses sight, smell, sound, and taste. If they don't see it in the bins I would think that wouldn't be good. Also, what do you do with the corn you pop? Do you have to keep turning the popper on and off most poppers have pretty small bins? I hope the cleaning company knows how to properly clean the poppers as there is a right way then a lot of wrong ways that will damage the kettle!
 

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Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 03-24-2008, 01:14 PM:
 
My old theater (8-plex) had 2 poppers and one warmer. The second popper rarely needed to get used except on the holidays. The warmer was simply filled from the popper.

Right before we were ready to close we'd bag a small bit just in case a huge rush came in; then start cleaning a little bit before closing time.
 

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Posted by Rene Ferron (Member # 4674) on 03-24-2008, 02:53 PM:
 
Chris did you taste some stale popcorn when you took that picture of yours ? heheheh..

Thx very much for all the replies.
 

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Posted by Dennis Benjamin (Member # 1137) on 03-24-2008, 03:33 PM:
 
I gotta chime in here:

National Amusements (back in the 90's) popped once a week. I was appalled at this fact and decided to do a taste test (like Chris mentioned). More people did prefer the day old and week old stuff over the fresh.

I have actually popped it fresh for people - right in front of them- and then they have said "Something is wrong with it". So there is something to the moisture ratio mentioned previously.

The brand of the corn and the brand/type of the oil is actually the most important part of good popcorn. When I was in Vegas, we used Orville Redenbacher (30lb bags) and Odell's Canola/Coconut blend. We were voted best Movie Theatre popcorn in Vegas those two years I was there. Yeah - it was a bigger cost - but it was worth it. I have not tasted popcorn that good since I was there.
 

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Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 03-24-2008, 03:54 PM:
 
The Carmikes in Billings have poppers in their stands, but when things get real busy they haul in extra popcorn -- get this -- in rubber garbage cans, and dump it into the sale bins. Very appetizing.
 

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Posted by Don Furr (Member # 1469) on 03-24-2008, 04:25 PM:
 
It was a common practice in my theatres to bag popcorn in a large plastic bag at the end of the night and mix it with the first fresh pop of the next day. If your heaters are working properly (we always yanked out the standard coils and installed the BIG ones)I would challenge anyone to detect that is was a "mixed" bag.
 

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Posted by Joe Elliott (Member # 4006) on 03-24-2008, 06:03 PM:
 
About leaving the popcorn in the warmers, the indoor I had started at, when I first started there, would bag up their popcorn, but what was in the warmer was left there and covered overnight. It wasn't until (I don't recall when, but probably in Jan. or Feb. when it was slow) the popcorn in the bin had not gotten low, nor cleaned out for a couple of weeks, and they decided to clean it. They found a dead rat at the bottom of the warmer. That started a new rule (and rightly so) that all popcorn in the warmers would be bagged back up every night, and the warmers cleaned out.
 

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Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 03-24-2008, 09:49 PM:
 

quote: Sean McKinnon

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If you have no bins then how do the customers see the product?

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quote: Darryl Spicer

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If you are using to much syrup then you are not putting enough ice in the cup.

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quote: Jeremy Weigel

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Or your brix ratio is too rich

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quote: Scott Norwood

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I truly do not understand why AMC, Regal, and the rest don't make an effort to provide really good popcorn. My experience has been that the chains always have the worst tasting corn.

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I have ALWAYS felt UA was the only chain that had really great tasting popcorn...if popped properly. Only once have I had AMC popcorn that I thought was pretty good. Cinemark is decent, but something just isn't right (I think it is the oil). I used to manage UAs for several years and there definitely is an art to it, as I became the Popcorn Nazi manager (like Allison)...but damnit if we didn't get compliments every day about how F'ing good our popcorn was!

I thought I would never have truly great popcorn after I left UA management since even though they had the same ingredients it wasn't the same as my slightly modified popping techniques. However I am very happy to report that last year I went by an old theater I used to work at (UA Galaxy) and the popcorn I got that day truly brought back great memories, so at least someone still remembers how to make it right. It was phenomenal.

quote: Darryl Spicer

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Same thing is involved with the soda fountain. If you are using to much syrup then you are not putting enough ice in the cup.

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That's just the suits being super cheap-asses. Raw materials like corn and BIBs cost virtually nothing, particularly when compared to the price the customers are paying. I firmly believe it is better to give the customer a better value and watch them happily return to the stand again and again, rather than burn them. This is one reason why when I go to a Cinemark every now and then I will no longer buy the large popcorn, because they don't do drink refills and they really like to pack that cup with ice.

(Someone should do a comparison of how much liquid is really in a 44oz cup when the cup is filled all the way with ice vs. 1/3 or 2/3 full.)
 

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Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 03-25-2008, 02:19 AM:
 
Also depends on the popcorn/oil ratio which is 3 seed to 1 oil. Thus, if you got a PR32EDNG, Cretors 32oz President, you should be shooting in 11oz of oil for your 32 oz of seed, in a 550 degree kettle.

And also, if you use full canola oil or another kind called "Popwise", it's gonna taste pretty raunchy being more of a vegetable oil, than the heart attack creating, high cholestrol coconut oil - which really does make the popcorn taste abolutely great.
 

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Posted by Anslem Rayburn (Member # 1267) on 03-25-2008, 07:55 AM:
 

quote: Monte L Fullmer

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than the heart attack creating, high cholestrol coconut oil

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A slight correction is in order. Coconut oil doesn't contain any cholesterol, but is high in saturated fat which can boost bad cholesterol in your body.

1 ounce of coconut oil has 24 grams of saturated fat (121% of the RDA) while 1 ounce of canola oil has 2 grams (11% of the RDA).
 

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Posted by Don Furr (Member # 1469) on 03-25-2008, 08:54 AM:
 
Speaking of coconut oil, when the big scare in the early/mid 90's came up about how bad coconut oil was I was operating 7 theatres at the time. We NEVER skipped a beat using coconut oil. Just about everyone else switched to one of those "fu-fu" oils but we just kept on clogging those arteries.
 

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Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 03-25-2008, 10:29 AM:
 
And now we find out that they were more or less full of crap and coconut oil itself isn't necessarily bad for you. They had simply assumed that if hydrogenated coconut oil was bad that it meant coconut oil was bad... and now we know that the whole hydrogenation process itself makes any oil bad for you.

edit: And one thing that I remember my old manager saying was (according to her) the most important part of making popcorn taste better was to usually have the kettle set at a slightly lower temp than what the manufacturer recommended. And damned if her setup and procedure consistently made the stuff taste fantastic. Though when that theater had become an AMC (which had us switch from Canola to Coconut) it took some getting used to that the corn simply looked a different shade and smelled way different to me. Still tasted good. Then I later realized I had the allergy
 

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Posted by James Westbrook (Member # 3690) on 03-25-2008, 11:54 AM:
 
Cinemark opened Movies 12 in Lubbock in 1990. When I stepped into the lobby, I noticed the popcorm smelled different than what I was used to smelling at UA (who I was working for at the time) and Mann. Cinemark was popping with Promise popping oil at the time. This was confirmed the day Cinemark took over the Mall theatre UA had owned (and me with it.) The UA district manager had already hauled out all of the UA concessions' cups, tubs, candy, butter and all of that as Cinemark had already ordered a truck of concession supplies to arrive that same day.
The first batch of popcorn popped with Promise confirmed my suspicions...
One of the older Cinemark hands told me Cinemark used cocoanut oil in the 80s as he recalled having to use the "Hot Rod" by Cretors to melt the cocoanut oil in the winter time before the pump could be installed in the new container. We had one, too, at UA. Canola oil does not solidify or gel.
How does the B.I.B. cocoanut oil work? Wouldn't the rack it is sitting on have to be extra hot to melt it? Or is something added to the Cocoanut oil so as it won't solidify in the box?
 

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Posted by Don Furr (Member # 1469) on 03-25-2008, 12:01 PM:
 
The answer is heated BIB racks. It doesn't take that much heat to melt the oil.
 

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Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 03-25-2008, 12:27 PM:
 
Yeah you just use heated racks then load the poppers from the racks. Very easy.
 

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Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 03-25-2008, 12:56 PM:
 
The old theatre I worked at years ago used coconut oil. We took the I think it was 5 gallon metal containers and sat them on top of the transformer unit in the transformer room. After a day or so it was all liquefied and we then took it to the popper for use.
 

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Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 03-25-2008, 12:57 PM:
 
We, also, ignored the coconut oil scare. That whole thing was stupid anyway. If you were LIVING on nothing but popcorn, then maybe they'd have a point, but a once-every-week-or-two snack? What's the problem?

I had one person ask if we were still using that "BAD" oil in the popcorn, and I said yes, and he said "Great! I was hoping you weren't going to change!"
 

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Posted by Jeremy Weigel (Member # 4208) on 03-25-2008, 08:43 PM:
 
Man, I wish Regal would have ignored all that hoopla. They sent us dividers to split our bin/warmers and pop canola and corn oil versions for several months. And having only one popper it made it a pain in the arse! We had to wipe out the popper before switching oils. Eventually they settled on corn oil.

Corn oil tasted OK, but damn it was not easy to keep the popper clean. That stuff turns into a glue-like crap at high temps and burns too easily.
 

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Posted by Sean McKinnon (Member # 612) on 03-26-2008, 08:28 AM:
 
One thing I don't think that some theatres do is toss the first batch. The first batch will always taste like crap, it will pick any left over cleaning residue, and it is a good way to make sure the popper is heated properly. You should NEVER heat up an empty kettle, just throw a batch of seed and oil in when you turn the thing on when it pops toss that first batch and you are ready to go!
 

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Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 03-26-2008, 11:10 AM:
 

quote: Sean McKinnon

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You should NEVER heat up an empty kettle

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quote: Jeremy Weigel

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Corn oil tasted OK, but damn it was not easy to keep the popper clean. That stuff turns into a glue-like crap at high temps and burns too easily.

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quote: Mike Blakesley

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OK here's another popcorn question. On the old Manley machine we used to have, the instruction book said it was vital to have the oil HOT before putting the seed in -- said the kernels would be fluffier. On our newer Cretors machine, they say to do the opposite: Put the seed in first, then the oil, then turn on the heat. I can see that if the kettle is already hot, but what about that first batch?

I figure the Cretors people are just covering their butts with that instruction, so I tell my people to let the oil heat a couple of minutes on the first batch before putting the corn in.

We don't toss the first batch, but we almost always make 2 or 3 a night, so the first stuff gets mixed in with the later. (We wipe the kettle with plain paper towels only, so there is no cleaning residue.)

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quote: Monte L Fullmer

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Hey Mike - I bet you would love to have that Manley back in a hearbeat...nothing can outdo a Manley when it comes to corn popping.

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The Manley made good popcorn it's true, but the Cretors outdoes it hands down in a lot of other ways. Easier to clean; easier to use; nicer looking; faster; the Cretors heaters keep the corn better than our Manley ever did; and most importantly: We can get parts for it.

As for the popcorn brand name: We switched from Mormac to Orville Redenbacher just so we could put that logo on the wall. Can't beat that name recognition, and the price was about the same.
 

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Posted by Sean McKinnon (Member # 612) on 03-27-2008, 05:02 PM:
 
Yeah, Cretors is just covering thier behind because just oil with no seed could cause a flash fire. For insurance reasons I think I would follow it though incase the popper did catch fire and your insurance company investigated it they could try to say that you were not following the directions of the machine.
 

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Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 03-27-2008, 05:52 PM:
 
The only time the oil goes in first is on the first batch, when the kettle is cold. After that it's seed first, then oil.
 

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Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 03-27-2008, 06:41 PM:
 
But, how many, many, many times we've seen people/circuits using the Cretor units by firing up the kettle til it's almost smoking, toss in the seed, then shoot the oil in so they can have a great batch made on the first dump?

Who wants to waste a batch by Cretor's instructions even though they have a valid reason to do so ...as mentioned on ins liabilities..?
 

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Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 03-28-2008, 12:40 AM:
 
I guess all the popcorn purists here would positively gag, were they exposed to Northwestern drive-ins... and a few indoor houses, too.

Seattle's Harlan Fairbanks Co. used to have a HUGE gas-powered air popper, with which they sold pre-popped corn by the 5 pound bag. They brought coconut oil in by rail car, which they used to locally fill containers for theatres and power their own machine. The air-popped corn worked its way up a screen, which filtered out the small stuff & old maids. Oil & seasoning was sprayed on. Then the corn emptied into a big hopper, from which the bags were filled. Believe it or not, that popcorn could sit in a box for a couple of weeks before being warmed in a serving bin.

United Drive-Ins of Washington, owned by California's Pacific Theatres, used pre-popped corn exclusively. Only recently have they started popping their own. I know of one indoor theatre that still uses pre-pop. It's not wonderful, but people do buy the stuff. Costco used to stock it... maybe they still do.

Somebody mentioned that some theatres pop their corn elsewhere in the building. Our local AMC (formerly a GCC) theatre does this. They have one of those 2-kettle machines on the floor above the lobby. A couple times a week, they do a mass-batch of corn, with which they fill the warmers built into their concessions counter. This may not be as gross as 2-week-old pre-pop, but it wasn't necessarily popped today, either.

Yummy!
 

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Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 03-28-2008, 01:06 AM:
 
Though all the other AMCs in the Seattle area (the takeovers from Loews-Cineplex) have poppers in the snack bar.
 

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Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 03-28-2008, 09:27 AM:
 
There is a small chain here in Montana, Polson Theatres, which has warmers in the counters and does all their popping in back room. They run nice clean operations but I think that's a mistake...popping in front of people is the best way to sell corn, as long as the machine is kept clean.
 

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Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 03-28-2008, 01:34 PM:
 

quote: Chris Slycord

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Though all the other AMCs in the Seattle area (the takeovers from Loews-Cineplex) have poppers in the snack bar.

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quote: Jack Ondracek

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That may be, Chris. Over here (30 miles West of Seattle)they just changed the signs & policy strips. Everything else is pretty much as it was when General Cinemas had it.

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