The reaction of customers strolling the curb-side market was immediate. After doing a triple-double-take when they read the sign, their curiosity made them want to taste for themselves just how bad Cromer’s peanuts were. Business boomed for the poor farmer.

Peanut Legend

Cromer’s peanuts were, in truth, fresh roasted every day, and he could not possibly have imagined that his self-deprecating promotion would turn a humble curb-side market stand into three stores and become a legend in the peanut world.

The peanut incident occurred in 1937. Farmers would bring their produce into town, back their wagons or Model-T trucks up to the curb and peddle their home-grown goods to customers on the sidewalk. The open-air market covered several city blocks and had a carnival-like atmosphere. For Cromer, it was an eight-mile trek each week from his farm in the country.

During market day he would frequently buy a bag of peanuts from another vendor and usually complained about how stale they were. “You know, someone could really make a pretty good living around here if they ever decided to start selling fresh peanuts instead of the stale ones,” he was heard to say.

Fresh Every Day

He eventually added peanuts to his own produce line. But they had to be today’s fresh roasted, not left-overs that didn't sell yesterday, a creed he insisted on for years to come. At the end of each day, with careful planning and a smart inventory management system, all his peanuts would be sold or discarded, and a new batch had to be roasted for the next market day.

Cromer sold so many “Guaranteed Worst in Town” peanuts that within four years the produce was gone, and he sold only peanuts. Bagging of the peanuts was done by hand, and he would pay children 20 cents for every 100 bags they filled. Some of these lads became so expert at the task they could fill 5,000 bags a day and earn the phenomenal post-depression amount of $10.

The famous Columbia Curb Market closed down in the mid-50s and farmers moved to a new location on the edge of town. It was further away than Cromer was prepared to travel each day, so he rented a store directly across the street from where he had sold produce out of his wagon for years.

Peanuts And More

It proved to be a good move, and Cromer’s P-Nuts store thrived exclusively on the peanut trade. Then in 1959, friends convinced him to start selling equipment and supplies for carnival-type activities, so he added candy apples, popcorn, snowballs, and cotton candy.

When several heart attacks slowed him down, he handed the business over to his four sons. The sons opened new stores at the huge Columbia Dutch Square Shopping Mall and in Myrtle Beach. Visitors traveling Business Highway 17 at Myrtle Beach couldn’t miss the humorous mural outside Cromer’s store (see photo.)

Peanuts are still sold at Cromers, only the inventory now includes an additional 5,000 items such as novelties, party and holiday supplies, patriotic, fund-raising, and promotional items. At the shopping mall store, ring-tailed monkeys swing around in a glass cage in the ceiling, a carry-over from Julian Cromer’s curb market days.

For more information see the website: cromers.com