By Heather Lusk
Inga Smith will have a busy summer.
The owner of Inga’s Popcorn is moving to a new location, 70 East Hawthorne Street, aiming for a September grand opening.
The storefront is just off Main Street, a move necessitated by the high rent of her previous location on the brick street where Inga’s Popcorn was located for more than four years. Her lease is up May 31.
“I loved where I was,” she said. “I was just having a tough time meeting ends during the slow months.”
“It’s strictly the money,” she said. “Hopefully I’ve learned something in my first four-and-a-half years in Zionsville.”
Several weeks ago Smith announced she would be closing the Main Street shop and would sell her product at local merchant Ballerinas and Bruisers, which will continue until August. Smith will pop her product in Bloomington until the kitchen in Zionsville is completed, which Smith isn’t rushing.
“We’re going to take our time and get the kitchen set up and built,” she said. “We’re going to take it easy and do things slowly.”
Smith encourages anyone waking past the new location to stop in if the lights are on.
“We welcome nosy,” she said.
Her location will include the same Indiana-made items she sold on Main Street and currently sells at her Bloomington store.
Once the storefront is established, Smith hopes to create an adjacent pop-up-shop on weekends as an option for locals to showcase their homemade products.
“We’ve got a lot of artisans in our community,” Smith said.
She appreciates all of the concern she has received from the community over the past few weeks as she announced she would be closing the Main Street location.
“It makes me feel like I do something that people really like,” she said. “And that’s important in life.”
