Said one man to whoever wanted to hear it: “My wife wants some (chocolate) turtles. She should have got a turtle instead of me.”
But maybe the biggest treat was this: Four years after feeling “kind of a lost soul for a bit,” owner Matt Luther was in the midst of it, smiling and feeling very much at home.
In January 2018, Luther was briefly out of the insurance business after 14 years “and really didn’t want to go back into it.”
“It’s no fun to call people and tell them their rates are going up or their claim’s not covered,” he said.
“I was kind of pondering what my next step would be, and I read an article (in the News-Sun) about Tim and Laurel Shouvlin” wanting to sell the Peanut Shoppe.
So, Luther took stock.
Credit: Bill Lackey
Credit: Bill Lackey
“The kids (two boys and a girl) were mostly grown, for the most part,” he said, and after mentioning it to his wife, Amy, of 30 years, Luther examined the shop that’s been around since 1937 with a business person’s eye, checking boxes along the way.
“The size was nice. It was an efficient little business, and you have to be there to run it,” he said. “It’s a physical job, too,” because of regular deliveries of 25-30 pound boxes of candies and nuts and 100-pound bags of peanuts.
In addition, “I told my wife I wanted to come home tired at the end of the day,” he said, assuming he likely would also enjoy spending time with people “happy to see you and your fudge and your popcorn.”
Luther then made a trip to Cincinnati to talk it all over with his childhood friend from Springfield, Jim Tinker, who offered this assessment: “It’s perfect. You’re a host. That’s what you do.”
As it turns out, one of Luther’s greatest pleasures is the host of people he sees each day – people from a much wider spectrum of life than he saw in his first career as a golf pro.
“Everybody comes in the door. You get out of your own little world and you start to figure out other people’s worlds and their neighborhoods and their families. It’s fun.
“They’re nice, they treat you well. They support you. They root for you. They’re concerned when something’s wrong.”
That atmosphere is in part due to friends who run into one another in the shop and take time to catch up – including Luther’s own.
“I’ve seen more of my old friends in (the past) four years, just because they know I’m here and they can pop in on me when they’re in town.”
Luther enjoys a staff that includes his sister, Patty Luther; his first major hire, Mike Halpin; and 16-year-olds Dane’ah Perry and Sylvia Corson, both juniors at Catholic Central High School.
Younger staff not only “bring that energy into the room,” he said, but “handle the commotion pretty well” when the shop fills up and lines back up.
What do they come for?
Tons of cashews, redskins or large Virginia peanuts; root beer barrels, Bit-o-Honey and other “old school” treats that can be hard to find; and, at Christmas time, double-dipped chocolate peanuts, which seem to be habit forming.
Plus, “We make our own fudge,” Luther said. A more recent addition is the popcorn, added three years ago when Springfield’s Lobby Shoppe stopped selling it and was nice enough to sell him the machine they’d used from a Bellefontaine movie theater.
The owners were also nice enough to put a sign in the window saying the Peanut Shoppe was carrying on the business, a reminder of the city’s local-helps-local business community.
Largely through contacts at the Springfield Farmer’s market, the Peanut Shoppe carries jams from Liz Nelson’s Enjambment; Daytonian Dan Clayton’s Twisted River Coffee; and Ben Hamilton’s maple syrup, when available.
It also continues to carry local honey from the Shouvlins’ Bluebird Hills Farm.
In turn, Peanut Shoppe nuts are sold at Mother Stewart’s, the Mug N Jug, and area VFWs and Elks. Iron Works Waffle Café at the CoHatch uses Peanut Shoppe peanut butter in one of its offerings.
“I think we’ve grown the business a little bit,” Luther said, and he enjoys the challenge of doing so.
He’s also focused on social media, “because every day somebody walks in the door who’s a Springfield resident and says, ‘I have no idea you guys were here.’ And their eyes get huge.”
“Once you get them in the door,” he said, “they spread the word, and it just feeds on itself.”
All of which means that a 52-year-old who was “kind of a lost soul for a bit” has found a new home.
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