A brand new nonprofit popcorn shop is on the brink of open in Highland Park next 12 months.

Highland Popcorn is about to open late January or early February within the Highland Village Plaza shopping mall, with each a retail storefront and a wholesale component to package products for stores just like the nearby Lunds & Byerlys. They’ll have butter popcorn, cheese corn, caramel corn and seasonal flavors like peppermint crunch, plus cookies and sodas.

The shop’s workforce will probably be predominantly individuals with mental and developmental disabilities, said founder Shamus O’Meara.

(If you happen to don’t know O’Meara, perhaps you recognize his son Conor, or a minimum of his voice: The 25-year-old hosts an area radio show called “Conor’s Corner,” on which he talks about sports and life with autism and chats with guests starting from Vikings player Justin Jefferson to St. Paul City Council member Chris Tolbert.)

Although popcorn generally is a grab-and-go product, Highland Popcorn is supposed to be an area to hang around, O’Meara said. So there’s loads of seating — and different textures, too, from traditional chairs to benches to soft pillows on modular boxes.

The space is vivid and colourful, and so they’ll have a conveyable stage to host live events or podcast recordings, O’Meara said. Lighting fixtures, which have yet to be installed, are set to seem like popcorn. There’s also a sensory room for individuals who need it.

And popcorn, he said, is well-suited to the unique strengths of his workforce.

The production process includes quite a lot of discrete tasks — sorting kernels, pushing bins, popping popcorn, mixing flavors, packaging finished popcorn for wholesale — so an worker can find a distinct segment they excel at. This fashion, O’Meara can facilitate a piece environment where employees can focus their attention, receive clear guidance and develop patterns and routines that work for them, moderately than feeling overwhelmed by conflicting instructions and constant transitions between activities.

For many individuals with disabilities, jobs which can be accessible, reliable and oriented toward their unique skills are nearly unimaginable to seek out. Nationally, only about one in five disabled people were employed last 12 months.

O’Meara feels a heightened responsibility to ensure that that, when Highland Popcorn opens, he does right by his employees. The very last thing he desires to do, he said, is open the shop only to should close it and yank the chance out from under his staff’ feet.

“They’re coping with enough challenges of their lives,” he said. “I don’t want this to be one other bad experience or feel like someone hasn’t given them a chance to achieve success.”

By day, O’Meara, who lives in Highland Park, is an attorney and a former chair of the Minnesota Governor’s Council on Developmental Disabilities.

Nevertheless, as he admitted with amusing, “35 years as a lawyer doesn’t prepare you for anything within the retail popcorn business.”

To support various points of the business, O’Meara has assembled a who’s-who of partners, including a number of the top names in marketing, disability services, and, yes, the popcorn industry.

Lunds & Byerlys helped him secure the storefront. FoodOps, an area food consultancy founded by a former executive at local popcorn juggernaut Angie’s Boomchickapop, helps develop Highland Popcorn’s products and recipes.

National concessions company Gold Medal Products is sending a representative to coach the staff on all things popcorn, and MSS, a disability support organization in St. Paul, helps with job coaching. Local brand agency Fame is doing the shop’s marketing, including designing its logo and vibrant imagery.

Focus Beyond Transition Services can even use Highland Popcorn as a placement site for its programming, which helps young adults with disabilities gain employment and life skills. This is especially meaningful, O’Meara said, as Conor went through the Focus Beyond program a couple of years ago.

“This is just one popcorn business, but you’ve got to begin somewhere,” he said.

Because the retail storefront comes together, contractors are consistently stepping into and out. So the doors are sometimes unlocked, though Highland Popcorn won’t open for a pair more months.

Over the course of a 45-minute conversation earlier this month, three separate would-be customers flung open the shop’s door to ask in the event that they were open.

“Not quite yet,” O’Meara told an older couple who stopped by. “But pick your table — I’ll put your name on it for you!”

They introduced themselves to at least one one other.

“Oh, a very good Irish name!” the lady said gleefully.

After they left: “That happens on a regular basis,” O’Meara said, chuckling. “Walking in, knocking on the door. … But I’m glad we’re hearing this really positive vibe from the Highland community, and beyond, too. That’s been cool.”

Highland Popcorn: Opening early 2024 at 2138 Ford Pkwy; highlandpopcorn.com