“This is it, baby”

The character of a city is largely shaped by the extent to which it can nurture grand and modest dreams in equal proportion. Everybody, of course, has their own notion regarding what constitutes a grand or modest dream. But to be truly interesting places, a city’s neighborhoods need small businesses that manage to conflate both sorts into singular brick-and-mortar entities that, over time, become important landmarks. A truly useful map of any great city would reveal a galaxy of such essential places—places like Tom’s Popcorn Shop in South Minneapolis.

Located since 1971 on Cedar Avenue just north of Minnehaha Parkway, Tom’s is the kind of quiet institution that has somehow survived the myriad changes and challenges that have claimed so many small businesses in recent decades. The continued existence of the place feels frankly improbable, and represents something of a litmus test: When you visit Tom’s Popcorn do you see a grand dream or a modest dream?

Brian Goetz, who has been behind the counter at the shop for almost three decades, is the sort of entertaining curmudgeon who instinctively hesitates to call his family business any kind of dream (unless he’s being sarcastic, which he pretty much always is), even as it’s clear that he loves his job and somehow belongs exactly where he is.

Goetz is a burly, deadpan character who always seems to be doing two or three things at once. His dad—that would be Tom—bought the shop from the original owner in 1979. “I’m not quite sure what he was thinking,” Goetz said. “He’s never had a good answer for why he bought the place, but I went to work for him right away—not very happily, I can tell you that.”

Goetz is running the place today because … well, because a number of other things didn’t work out. “I worked at Shakey’s Pizza doing food prep for a time,” he said. “And then I went to Normandale to become a copper. I actually got my license and worked up in Dakota County for a while, but I didn’t much like it. What a crappy job. Too much paperwork, and I was making peanuts. My dad was an electrician, but he had to punch a time clock, and I knew that wasn’t gonna work for me either. I guess you could say I’m kind of anti-bureaucracy. So here I am, for the rest of eternity. I have no backup plan—this is it, baby.”

Tom’s Popcorn is a tiny storefront jammed into a seriously truncated, early strip mall tucked into the middle of a neighborhood. It shares the real estate with a defunct Chinese restaurant and a convenience store. The shop is pretty much a one-man operation; Goetz drives in from his house near Hastings six days a week. He works alone, which is how he prefers it. “Having someone else here annoys the hell out of me,” he said. “I like people on that side of the counter.”

While fresh, buttered popcorn remains the staple of his business, Goetz also peddles ice cream, and upwards of fifty different versions of flavored or “enhanced” corn. He’s always experimenting. On any given day you might find grape, lime, peanut butter, chocolate, caramel, or hot and spicy varieties alongside such mainstays as caramel corn, cheese corn, and Goetz’s signature TC mix: a caramel/cheese combination.

There are also, somewhat curiously, chainsaw sculptures for sale (the proprietor’s sideline), as well as, occasionally, bundles of firewood.

Over the course of several visits, Tom’s Popcorn was bustling with business. Everyone who came in the door received a robust greeting, a greeting that was inevitably followed by some sort of hard time—good natured, it seemed, although with Goetz it’s not always easy to tell.

An older fellow requested a large bag of buttered popcorn with extra salt, and as Goetz prepared the order he shot the man a stern look and said, “Got a death wish, do you?” Two teenage boys ordering malts got grief for dawdling, but seemed to take Goetz’s ribbing in stride.

“I’ll pick on the customers,” he said a few moments later. “Sometimes I might really be hacked off, but I’ve learned that you can get away with almost anything just as long as you say it with a smile on your face.”

There’s not much of a safety net for a small operator like Goetz; he has no health insurance, but despite a recent broken ankle he doesn’t seem much concerned. “I always tell the wife that if things get too bad she should just roll me in a ditch somewhere and be done with it.”

Though the winter months are a challenge, Goetz continues to make the drive to Minneapolis from his home. “January, February, and March are terrible,” he said. “It’s just bleak. Really, really bleak.” When asked whether he ever considers closing up shop for a few weeks or months, Goetz answered with almost alarming rapidity. “No,” he said. “Wouldn’t want to do that. The wife’s at home. I come here to hide out.”

As one visitor prepared to leave, another customer entered the shop. “How’s it going, Brian?” the man asked.

“Living the dream, as always,” Goetz said, clearly in jest. It was obvious, though, that this was one of those jokes that, however unconsciously, harbored a good deal of truth.