Cassie Oltman and her family own the legendary Cassie’s Popcorn stand in downtown Sycamore, plus a culinary addition — Cassie’s Corncrib Cafe. (Photo by Kelli Duncan / for
Chronicle Media)

The owners of Sycamore’s legendary downtown popcorn stand are no longer limited to tasty snacks.

Cassie’s Popcorn, the 100-year-old stand in downtown Sycamore, recently opened a new restaurant called Cassie’s Corncrib Cafe.

The restaurant, located near the corner of Maple and Elm Streets, serves breakfast, lunch and dinner as well as a variety of desserts.

Owner Cassie Oltman, said the business has a rich history in Sycamore and in her family.

The Sycamore Popcorn Stand, as it was called in 1893, began as a horse-drawn popcorn wagon owned by a man named James Elliot.

The stand was sold a number of times over the years before it was bought by Cassie’s mother, Jolinda “Jody” Mattison, in 1983. Mattison ran the corner stand with her mother-in-law and eventually the entire family became involved in the business.

“My brother and I were almost out of the house by then and my mom had got involved with the popcorn stand with another woman, Cecile, and then she decided to sell it to her so she took it over full time,” Oltman said.

Oltman said her mother ran the business with the family’s help until around 2011 when she handed it over to her daughter and son-in-law.

“She kept it going and I started helping her out more and more and she finally just said, ‘I’ve had enough, it’s your turn,’” Oltman said.

Since then, Oltman and her husband, Troy, have renamed the stand and added six new popcorn flavors to the mix. Oltman said, if she had to pick, her favorite flavor of popcorn would be the “Sycamore style” which is their homemade caramel corn covered in cheddar cheese. Some of the new flavor options include cotton candy, jalapeño cheddar and Twix.

Oltman drove a bus for the school district in Sycamore for 29 years in addition to working with the popcorn stand. Finally, Oltman said she and her husband reached the point where they were both ready to take a step back from their jobs so they decided to venture into something new.

“So we said ‘let’s open a cafe,’” Oltman said. “You know I always loved to bake and I have a girlfriend of mine who loves to bake who had been thinking about quitting her job as well so we all just said ‘alright, let’s do it.’”

Oltman said it took them about two years to get the building completely renovated and ready to open. She and her husband continued to work full time while renovating the building on evenings and weekends.

“It was a lot,” Oltman said. “But we would just get as much done as we could during the days we had time free and some nights.”

Oltman said they were finally able to open the cafe on Feb. 20 of this year. She said the idea behind the name actually came from one of the men that helped them with the building renovations.

“Well we were thinking we had to do something with corn or popcorn because we wanted them to be connected and then one of the guys said we should call it the corncrib cafe,” Oltman said. “And my husband said ‘yeah, Cassie’s Corncrib Cafe—that works.’”

Oltman said they wanted the design of the cafe to fit in with the Sycamore community to make their customers feel at home.

“We wanted it to look like a hometown cooking type of place,” Oltman said. “We do everything by hand, all of our cakes, everything is made from scratch.”

She said many of the recipes they use have been passed down through her family for generations.=

“Thursday nights we do meatloaf, mashed potatoes and gravy, Fridays we’re doing hand-tossed pizzas and Saturday we do cheesy scallop potatoes and ham,” Oltman said. “And it’s all family and friends, you know, I have three daughters and they all have kids so they just work when they can.”

Oltman said they sell popcorn at the cafe as well so that people can still get their fix when the popcorn stand is closed for the winter.

“I make the popcorn fresh here every morning and then I bag it up and take some down to the stand,” Oltman said.

According to Oltman, people come from all over to try popcorn from the historic stand.

“We have a lot of locals, of course, but a lot of people traveling will stop in,” Oltman said. “We have some people who travel all the way from Chicago for our popcorn.”

Oltman said her favorite part of the business is the people who come in every day. She said she  loves interacting with all their regular customers and the local families and kids that come through the door.

“We’ve done some arts and crafts from two to four in the afternoon on Fridays,” Oltman said. “We did that for about four weeks in the month of July just to open it up to families and kids so people know that we’re here.”

Cassie’s Corncrib Cafe also has a variety of unique crafts and art pieces made by local residents that are on sale around the restaurant. Goods for sale include homemade candles, light fixtures made from wine bottles and crocheted hedgehog stuffed animals.

Both businesses have always been a family affair. Oltman said that even her mom, Jody, still works at the cafe every once in a while.

“Just walking in the door you can tell it’s a family-run place,” Oltman said. “My grandson Cayson who is two and a half will come running through the kitchen. He likes to hide in the cabinets…there’s always family around.”

Oltman said her hope is to pass the business on to her daughters once she is ready to retire.

“I kinda wanted it to be something they could keep going so then I can be able to take time off once I’m ready to be done just like my mom passed it on to me,” she said.

The popcorn stand is now closed for the winter but Cassie’s Corncrib Cafe is open Tuesday through Sunday from 7 a.m. until 3 p.m. on weekdays and 7:30 p.m. Thursday-Saturday.

—- Cafe joins legendary downtown popcorn stand  —