LAFAYETTE, La. (KLFY) – The owner of ‘Pop-A-Licious, Justin Cormier, had challenges brought on by the pandemic that almost made him close permanently.

“We were having some problems with Covid and stuff, of course sourcing a lot of our products.

“It’s overwhelming. I mean, we’ve been in the game for a while. I really just want to try to scale back a little bit,” said Justin Cormier, owner, Pop-A-Licious Gourment Popcorn.

Justin Cormier has been a business owner in the downtown area for two years. Due to the challenges of being an owner in a pandemic, he started to look at a different career path. “We couldn’t balance it. We didn’t have enough staffing to keep everything going like it should have been. Our customer experience wasn’t where it needed to be. There were a lot of things I needed to fine-tune, and the thing that had to go; I thought it was the retail side,” he said.

Cormier says it’s been rough for the business for the past couple of months. He says he was forced to drive weekly to New Orleans to pick up supplies. “There were days we come in, and people couldn’t come in because we didn’t have enough product on the shelf and stuff like so really and truly these past couple of months has been rough,” said Cormier.

After taking time off for mental clarity, he realized his heart was in his shop. “I realize my heart is in the shop. I like the everyday grind of meeting the customers and doing the stuff in the shop,” he said. Downtown I always like the drive that we had downtown. It gives me that urban development feels; I love the atmosphere.”

Pop-A-Licious will be back open on Valentine’s Day.