Best commercial pop corn maker for cinema

Gold Medal, Paragon, Star, and Cretors are the more well known major poppers. When I was going to first purchase a popper I wanted a Gold Medal but at the time they didn't make a 4oz popper. I remember seeing this Gold Medal popper at the movies when I was a teen.



The 6oz Gold Medal popper like the one pictured above cost more than what I wanted to pay. I ended up buying a Star. I'm happy with my Star. I also liked the look of the Cretors poppers but they were sooooo expensive to me. I'm sure other folks will chime in.

There are a few threads on this forum that go over this. But you should be looking for:

* Old Maid Drawer- the bottom will be perforated to allow unpopped kernels (old maids) to fall through and into the drawer. This makes cleanup much easier.
* Heated Deck- keeps the popcorn warm and even allows you to keep the popcorn in the machined overnight or for a few days and heat it up. Some people on the forum have said they like the popcorn better a day or two later.
* Kettle- aluminum, stainless or non-stick. Different manufacturers make different types of kettles.

For the money and warranty I think Paragon and Gold Medal are your best bets. Paragon has a Limited Lifetime (yes Lifetime) warranty on their 4 oz machines and their machines are built like tanks. Good luck deciding and let us know if you have any other questions.

We had a pretty decent conversation about popcorn poppers in this forum last summer and I definitely recommend looking for that thread.

I went with the Gold Medal 4oz machine and am still happy with the purchase but Paragon poppers are great also.

Can't say enough good things about our little 4 oz Paragon popper (which we coincidentally bought from Ken). We narrowed it down between Paragon and Gold Medal. Felt that both manufacturers were top notch. The Paragon Cineplex model fit our needs best.

I own a cretors 6oz for my HT. It is the best thing I have ever owned. My kids like the popcorn more than the movies. Cretors are expensive machines but they are built in the states and you can tell. The quality of their construction is top notch. I got a great deal on mine but you can find them used for about 60% of the new price. Where are you? Valley Popcorn in Wisconsin will ship them to you and I would recommend those guys to anyone. Here is mine.



PM me if you need more info from them. I am in no way affiliated with them, just a big, big fan.

If I had a choice between the Paragon and the Benchmark, I'd go with the Paragon.
I don't have any experience with either popper but I'd go with the Paragon.

how large of a cinema do you have? if its like the large 14 or so screen cinemas near me i'd recommend looking into getting a warmer that way you can make a whole bunch store it in large plastic bags and warm up as needed with no down time.