For the longest time, Big Fun on Coventry Road in Cleveland Heights was the place to go for, well, fun things of yesteryear. However, it appeared as though the danger of living on the edge of nostalgia, that one day the store would fall into its gravitational pull and become a thing of the past itself, came to fruition when the popular venue closed its doors for the last time in June.
It turned out Big Fun owner Steve Presser had a plan all along to not only keep fans of Ghoulardi, whoopee cushions and other 20thcentury ephemera satiated, but also something bigger.
The vision was to create a new chapter of candy and nostalgia that is the recently opened Sweeties Big Fun at the new lifestyle-shopping center Pinecrest in Orange. The 2,155-square-foot store has candy and toys, as well as old-fashioned soda pop bottles, homemade popcorn and ice cream.
CoolCleveland talked to Presser about why he’s keeping Big Fun alive for future generations.
CoolCleveland: Wow, just as we mourned the loss of Big Fun, we received a sugar rush in the form of Sweeties Big Fun opening up. So how did the new venture come about?
Steve Presser: I went into partnership with a wonderful gentleman, friend, business associate Tom Scheiman from B.A. Sweetie Candy Company. Big Fun had bought from Tom for about 20 years. I’ve known him a long, long time, and we put together this unique venture that came to fruition. We got approached about two years ago by Randy Ruttenberg, one of the principals of Fairmount Properties. In no way was he trying to poach me from Coventry. But he said, “I always wanted to do something with you, and we have this really unique project opening up.” He also contacted Tom separately. So the two of us sat down with him. We decided we’re going to create this new store that would be using candy from B.A. Sweetie and toys from Big Fun.
CC: What are some of the highlights of Sweeties Big Fun?
SP: We felt that we needed to embellish upon not just the candy and not just the Big Fun toys, but other things that we think would inherently help the business be a draw for not only the store, but also for Pinecrest. So Tom created a whole section of soda pop that contains not fructose but real pure cane sugar. We have 200 different flavors of pops: traditional flavors, crazy flavors and unusual gross flavors of things we found in both candy and pop. So we have this whole wall of pop.
CC: Tell us about the Sweet and Cheesy popcorn offerings.
SP: We decided that since we’re a place that will have a lot of traffic, and we feel it will be a strong tourist area, we wanted to create something that would give almost a feel of a tourist place and a beach place. So we created a concession area that offers freshly made cheddar, caramel and plain popcorn. It’s called Sweet and Cheesy. We have a counter and some stools you can sit down. We also have soft-serve ice cream, which is made with 10 percent butterfat.
CC: Where will be people see the Big Fun influence at Sweeties Big Fun?
SP: When you walk in, you’re going to see on the back wall a 1968 Volkswagen Bus that had been sitting in an Akron field for 34 years. We cut it a little bit more in half and it’s totally painted akin to 1968. You’re going to see 10 different artist installations in the store hanging from the ceiling that are rotating. If you ask where the Big Fun flavor is, you’ll know immediately when you walk in. You’ll see a curatorial review of greeting cards that I put together as the best of the best of cards I carried at Big Fun. You’ll see a Cleveland section that has all Cleveland products that we either make ourselves with T-shirts, coffee mugs and magnets to other local Clevelanders who produce -shirts and coaster and things like that. We have a whole wall of joke, gag and novelty stuff. We have a big crazy toy section with retro stuff.
CC: So was Coventry’s Big Fun location closed because of Sweeties Big Fun and the new development at Pinecrest?
SP: No, the truth of the matter was I was going to keep both stores open, but it’s been very difficult for me financially on Coventry. Then I realized all of the time and effort I was putting into this store here, and money, I would be subsidizing Coventry. So it just didn’t make sense to do that.
CC: Finally, Sweeties Big Fun feels like the perfect next chapter to the Big Fun story.
SP: Exactly, and people will notice different things. Right now, I didn’t go crazy with collectables. I have very little. Down the road, may I grow having collectables here? Absolutely, something I would strongly consider, but right now out of the gate it’s my choosing of all different items I think would be fun and different, again looking at demographics, looking at a different setup because we’ve got a whole new concept here. We’re engaging the public with a whole kind of holistic approach to fun shopping.