Like an L train rumbling over the Wells Street Bridge at sunset or the giant hot dog flexing his biceps atop SuperDawg on the Northwest Side, the sugary warmth that wafts from a Garrett Popcorn shop is unmistakably Chicago.
Newcomers to the city may sniff at how readily people will line up outside a place that sells popped corn — that is, until they catch a whiff. It’s an aroma that’s perfumed the city’s streets for 75 years.
“I like the smell. You can smell it a block away,” said Richard Phelps, 87, a retired physician who lives in the Gold Coast neighborhood and stopped off at the Water Tower Place location for a bag of popcorn earlier this week. “It’s a Garrett smell.”
Phelps bought the cheese and caramel mix, but he likes to eat the flavors separately, he said.
To celebrate the anniversary, the company is launching several new flavors, including, on Sept. 23, Apple CaramelCrisp.
“We are authentic and we’re still making Garrett popcorn the same way that they did at 10 W. Madison in 1949,” said owner Megan Chody, whose family bought the company from the Garrett family back in 2005.
Gladys Otto Garrett started in her Milwaukee kitchen, before testing the waters at Madison and State Street in Chicago, where the corn was made in brass kettles (it’s still made that way). Back then, a bag of CheeseCorn or CaramelCrisp cost a nickel. Gladys Garrett died in 1982. And when it comes to what kind of kernels are air-popped for all the varieties offered, according to the company, it’s all from custom-grown, non-GMO butterfly (resulting in light and airy popcorn) and mushroom kernels (resulting in firm, round popcorn).
The recipe is a secret. The company allowed a Chicago Sun-Times photographer to go into the shop kitchen at the flagship store on Michigan Avenue last week, but asked her to avoid close-ups of the ingredients.
Chody says teasingly that the CaramelCrisp popcorn is made with seven ingredients commonly found in any kitchen.
Garrett has 14 stores in the Chicago area, as well as shops in Atlanta, Las Vegas, Dallas Fort Worth International Airport and locations across Asia.
Oprah named the CaramelCrisp and CheeseCorn mix one of her favorite things. Kanye West’s mother, Donda, used to order and ship Garrett popcorn to her son and others.
Husand and wife Andy and Eva Gregory were in town Monday from Kansas City, Missouri, and were “hitting all of the Chicago hot spots,” which, for them, meant a stop at Garrett’s.
“Coming up to Chicago, it’s kind of like nostalgia. I feel like we have to go,” Andy Gregory said.
In the last 12 months, Garrett Popcorn made 122 million gallons of popcorn, with the help of 6 million pounds of brown sugar and 9 million pounds of cheddar cheese, company officials say.
But surely after almost two decades of popping in and out of Garrett kitchens, isn’t Chody kind of sick of the smell?
No, she insists.
Does she eat popcorn every day?
“When I’m at a shop, I always leave with a bag because I believe in quality control,” she said. “You might as well make sure the boss is happy.”