When will Cromer’s P-Nuts move to North Main Street?

Cromer’s P-Nuts – a Columbia popcorn, boiled peanut and cotton candy institution for 82 years – has pushed back its move to North Main Street until after the first of the year.

The store had planned to relocate from Huger Street, where it has been for the past decade, to a renovated building at 3036 N. Main, near the Earlewood railroad trestle, by August or September. But permitting delays required a change in plans.

Fall is the busiest time of the year for the business, which produces the popcorn, peanuts and cotton candy and sells them wholesale to everyone from state fair vendors to high school football stadiums. The store’s owners, the Turner family, didn’t want to move in the middle of their annual rush.

“So we just decided to push the opening back after the first of the year,” said Rob Turner, who with his brother, Chris, helps oversee the business, which is owned by his mother, Carolette Cromer Turner.

Cromer’s operated for 40 years on Assembly Street downtown before moving in 2003 to a location near the S.C. State Fairgrounds. That location wasn’t visible enough, so the store moved to its current location in the Cogdill flooring building on busy Huger Street.

But the lease their has expired and Cogdill is trying to sell the building, at 1700 Huger St.

So the Turners purchased the vacant 12,600-square-foot building on North Main to capitalize on the emerging corridor — which is increasingly becoming home to bars, breweries and restaurants — and its surrounding neighborhoods.

Embrace the fried

In the new location, Cromer’s will showcase its production work as part of the customer experience, bringing out in the open the steel vats used to boil vast amounts of peanuts as well as the daylong work of popping corn and making cotton candy.

In the past, those functions were performed out of the public eye.

“It’s going to add to the customer experience,” Rob Turner said.

They are even going to add a corn dog station.

“Where else are you going to get a fresh corn dog?” he said. “So we’re going to expand our fried offerings. We’re going to embrace it!”

There will also be a dedicated retail space for shopping, along with counter service for customers and a sit-down dining area.

In addition to snacks, Cromer’s is known for it long history, its quirky slogan “Guaranteed Worst in Town,” and its seasonal party supplies.

“We were Party City before there was a Party City,” Rob Turner said.

Worst in town

Carolette is the granddaughter of Julian Cromer, the Lexington County farmer who started the business at the Assembly Street farmers market in 1936.

The story goes that another competing vendor repeatedly exhorted shoppers to buy his peanuts because they were “the best.” One day Julian Cromer, frustrated with the taunting, made a homemade sign that proclaimed his peanuts “worst in town.”

The odd, impromptu sign caught the attention of customers and a slogan was born. He added the “guaranteed” two weeks later.

“It was reverse marketing at its best,” Rob said.

Since then, four generations have played on that self-deprecating appeal.

A sign on the front of the Huger Street store reads, “Many nuts pass through these doors.”

Extend the scene

Cromer’s business is about 50 percent retail and 50 percent wholesale, Rob Turner said, with wholesale up about 30 percent in the past year. Online sales, at www.cromers.com, also are up, he said.

Longterm, Cromer’s plans to put locations in outlying retail centers within the Columbia area, or even outside the metro area, Turner said.

But for now, the Turners are hoping to blend in with the new life on North Main Street and extend the local food and local beer scene that is emerging there.

“We are all about customer experience ... what is made locally here in Columbia,” Turner said. “We are hopeful this will help continue the progress through the trestle.”

The retail area will be a bit smaller in the new building but should be more inviting to customers, Turner said, offering them an experience that isn’t available in the current store by opening up those windows into the back shop operation.

“It will give us a little bit more intimate retail feel not only for our long-time customers but for our new friends here in the neighborhood,” he said.

This story was originally published August 30, 2017 at 5:42 PM with the headline "When will Cromer’s P-Nuts move to North Main Street?."