Mr and Mrs Wonderful’s Fine Fair Foods has a self-serve box on the corner of its property at 514 SW Newaukum Ave. in Chehalis.
Caramel kettle corn is $5 for a standard-sized bag as shown on the right.
Michele Martin, owner of Mr and Mrs Wonderfuls’ Fine Fair Foods, started the business three years ago that sells kettle corn, cotton candy and lemonade.
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After Michele Martin had watched her mother make kettle corn over the last 15 years, even helping her perfect the recipe, she decided she should start a business selling it full time. So Martin and Steve Marshall teamed up to create Mr. and Mrs. Wonderful’s Fine Fair Foods three years ago, using a similar recipe to Martin’s mother’s.
“It seemed like something that would get us around to different events, see different things and it’s not the same nine-to-five desk job,” Martin said.
The duo normally sells their kettle corn at events, festivals, rodeos and farmers markets. During the summer they are at a different festival every weekend. They travel as far as Naches, Washington. They do not sell at the Southwest Washington Fairgrounds because the vendor fee is too high, Martin said, and they like to keep their prices as low as possible.
This summer, as the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered nearly every event, festival and large gathering statewide, they were forced to cancel what would have been their biggest year yet. Every event they had booked from mid-March to the beginning of October was canceled, including what would have been their first trip to Barter Faire, a large annual event in Tonasket, Washington that features vendors, musicians, artists and craftspeople from all over the country.
“This was the year we were actually going to make money because we had already dumped all the money into it we needed to to get what we needed,” Martin said.
That meant Mr. and Mrs. Wonderful’s Fine Fair Foods instead spent the summer focused solely on attending three farmers markets, manning its booths at one in Cowlitz County, the Centralia Farmers Market, which just closed for the year, and the Chehalis Community Farmers Market, which closes at the end of October.
“If it weren’t for the farmers markets, I probably would have had to sell the business,” Martin said. “So I’m thankful for the farmers markets.”
It would take a long list to name every type of kettle corn Mr. and Mrs. Wonderful’s Fine Fair Foods creates. Some of the most popular ones are the rainbow bag, which has eight different flavors in it, along with a caramel corn, regular kettle corn, a slightly-burnt caramel corn and a red and blue Superman mix. They also have a honey flavor that uses local, raw honey from Hive 5 Bees in Grand Mound, which has a more natural sweetness than processed sugar. Their most popular flavor right now is the snickerdoodle, which they only make in the fall. The only types they don’t make are the gourmet flavors, such as cheddar or dill.
“Their shelf life isn’t as long and I find that there’s not enough people in Washington that want to buy it,” Martin said. “It’s more of a waste than anything.”
Creating a batch of kettle corn takes Martin and Marshall a mere six minutes. The caramel takes a bit longer as it needs to cool before it can be put in the custom-made bags. They can get five bags out of one batch with their giant, industrial-sized steam-jacketed kettle. It takes this specialized kettle to create kettle corn as regular popcorn doesn’t pop up big and round like kettle corn. Kettle corn is exploded at temperatures of up to 500 degrees fahrenheit.
Standard-sized bags caramel and kettle corn goes for $5, while the other flavors run $6 a bag, and the prices go up for larger-sized bags. Beyond kettle corn, the business also offers 32-ounce lemonade drinks and over 20 flavors of cotton candy as well. They both cost $5 each.
“I usually put three of four flavors in the bag, and then if I’m at an event and you come up you can choose two of your own flavors if you don’t want one of the bags I’ve already made,” Martin said. “We try to keep our prices fair for our fair foods.”
Martin and Marshall plan to sell elephant ears next year and are constructing a building on the property to house the business and supply retail and grocery stores with their kettle corn.
Mr and Mrs Wonderful’s Fine Fair Foods has a self-serve box on the corner of its property at 514 SW Newaukum Ave. in Chehalis, located one block from the Veterans Memorial Museum and directly next door to the Steam Train. The self-serve box is restocked twice a week and is regularly cleaned and sanitized.
Anyone interested in buying can also visit their booth at the Chehalis Community Farmers Market until the end of October, or contact Martin through text (360-269-3190), email (mandmkettlecornllc@gmail.com) or through Facebook messenger (facebook.com/MrMrsWonderfulsFairFoods).
More Information on Mr. and Mrs. Wonderful’s Fine Fair Foods
Owners: Michele Martin and Steve Marshall
Location: 514 SW Newaukum Ave., Chehalis
Phone: 360-269-3190
Email: mandmkettlecornllc@gmail.com
Facebook: facebook.com/MrMrsWonderfulsFairFoods
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Reporter Eric Trent can be reached at etrent@chronline.com. Visit chronline.com/business for more coverage of local businesses.
