Pop Shoppe is back

A soda chain that sold “stubby” bottles of pop that customers could mix and match has reopened after a two-decade absence.

The Pop Shoppe, a familiar name to pop-lovers who lived in the area during the 1970s, recently opened in a 350-square foot store at 1002 S. Perry St.

David Dominick and Pat Holmstead purchased the franchise rights to The Pop Shoppe —a brand that at one time sold one million bottles of pop a day in the United States and Canada, but went under in the early 1980s when grocery store brands cut into the discount pop market.

Today’s bottles sport the familiar red-and-white label but aren’t the same squatty shape that some might remember.

“People don’t realize that the original bottles were only 10 ounces. The bottles today are 12 ounces. You get a little bit more,” Dominick said.

Customers not only get a little bit more, they pay a little bit more because the pop has been resurrected as a premium brand.

The store also has the franchise rights to Real Soda after resolving a legal battle with another store that operated under that name.

Dominick said the dual franchise create possibilities for a rotating stock of 1,400 different sodas.

Shelves in the South Perry store are packed with old-fashioned glass bottled filled with Dad’s root beer, Bubble Up, Crush, Calypso, Izze and other brands. Pops sell for $1.09 to $1.95 a bottle singly, but customers who assemble a case of 12 or more bottles get a 10 percent discount.

The Pop Shoppe brand has a lot of familiarity in Spokane, Dominick said, because the company once operated a bottling plant and six stores here. A generation of Spokane kids grew up with the stores and recall painstakingly selecting from as many as 30 flavors of pop.

The nostalgia factor causes some passers by to flip a U-turn when they see the sign and make a beeline for the pop displays.

“I’ve had people almost get in accidents because of it,” Dominick said.

After the Canadian-based The Pop Shoppe went public, and sales reached more than $30 million a year, the corporation went under in 1983.

In 2002, Canadian businessman Brian Alger purchased the rights and recipes for The Pop Shoppe, which is now headquartered in Burlington, Ontario.

The Pop Shoppe’s lineup includes lime rickey, root beer, cream soda, pineapple, black cherry, grape, orange and cola. The company plans to add another six flavors in the future, he said.