Top Star Popcorn Machine - 12oz Stainless-Steel Kettle, Reject Kernel Tray, Warming Light, and Accessories by Great Northern Popcorn (Red and Yellow)

UPDATING FROM 1 START TO 5!! The customer service team through the direct website is great!!! They responded within 24 hours (including the weekends), gave me options for trouble setting the kettle, and sent me a replacement kettle very quickly. It didn't matter if I ordered from Amazon or their direct website. I just had to provide the invoice from Amazon. Other companies should take note from their customer service!! It was top knotch! The kettle and machine are easy to clean up and wipe down. The popcorn was great! It worked quickly! I'll leave my original review notes below incase anyone has the same issues I had before. _________ Pro: My place of business smells like amazing popcorn. Con: I don't have any popcorn. As it stands, this item came in a box that was fully sealed but the product itself will not pop any popcorn. The kettle gets hot, the oil starts to steam, but it will not pop the kernels. I have tried 3 times, each time I have cleaned out the pot and replaced it with new oil and new kernels. I have also tried 2 different brands of oil and kernels. No popcorn. Just crushed dreams. I made sure to follow the directions for the machine itself as well as the kernel to oil ratio. I didn't pay $300+ for a popcorn oil scent diffuser. I sent in an email to customer support and they are supposed to respond within 24 hours. I'm hoping they can send me a working kettle, I can get some popcorn, and then upgrade this review.

Bought this for my family. It's a sturdy machine, with large capacity 12 ounce popping kettle. Pops quickly and consistently. I've hauled it around to volunteer events and parties and it's always a hit. And a superior popper to those I've seen in local businesses and schools. Cleans easily, and popper is removable. The real trick is to find the balance of oil and flavored sale with your batches. The 12 ounce capacity holds 1.5 cups of popcorn and recommends 8 tablespoons of oil. I use 6 tablespoons and do a combo of canola oil, a little coconut oil and Orville Redenbacher butter flavored oil. Flavacol is the other secret to good tasting popcorn. I use it moderately, and it comes out just like theater popcorn. The warming tray keeps the popcorn warm and can be heated up for days after popping. The only drawback to this machine is its weight-it's pretty heavy. No issue if you have a permanent place for it, and with the weight comes durability. It's been a great investment, and with the price of snacks these days, it's a smart purchase.

Great popcorn machine. I couldn't be happier

We love using it for movie nights and parties. Paired with popcorn kits, it makes theater style popcorn (if not better). Looks to be of good build quality and works flawless

I work a large school concessions stand. We had 2 old Gold Medal machines that both failed. They were so old that our handyman couldn't even find valid part numbers! I was tasked with finding a replacement, quickly, until we could budget for a Gold Medal (which BTW are very expensive). This was one of the few 12oz machines available for immediate delivery but I had some concern about the large price differences between machines without any obvious real why the prices varied so much. Received this item quickly, as promised, and one thing I noticed right away was that even though the kettle size was the same as our old machines- 12oz- the housing is much smaller. I knew the housing was smaller but I didn't realize how small until I saw it in person. Our old machines took the entire footprint of a utility cart and this takes up about half the footprint. Setup was quick. I was very pleased that the kettle is not hardwired because that made cleaning very difficult. This is a plug- in kettle so it can be removed easily for proper cleaning. After hanging the kettle, you can pop the front service door on, the hinged glass doors, and the corner protectors. Finally place the kernel drawer underneath. That's it, you're ready to go. I suggest wiping everything with a damp cloth and light dish soap before complete assembly since you will be serving food directly from the machine. Besides all the items needed for assembly the package also came with a salt shaker, scoop, measuring cups, popcorn bags and reusable boxes. This machine pops 1-1/2 cups of kernels, 1/2 cup popcorn oil, 1 tbsp seasoned salt which of course gives you 12 oz of popped corn. For our typical 1.25oz box we serve it truly filled appx 9 boxes as expected with very little unpopped kernel waste. You could easily pop 2 batches at a time but no more as the housing is too small to do more. In comparison our old machine could hold 4 batches. because this machine pops faster I'm not actually expecting this to be as big of a problem as anticipated. That said, the 2 reasons so far that I took a star off is the small housing. This is more personal preference than design flaw since the dimensions are shown but whereas we could put our hands and box into the housing to fill boxes now we have to bring the scoop outside the housing to fill the box. Not a huge deal but leaves a small pile of inevitable dropped kernels at your feet and the whole filling process feels a little tight. The second reason is that the service door does not stay propped up when you open the glass doors. It's held into place by the glass doors so any time you open the doors it falls open at you and then you have to prop it back up again to close the doors. Another not huge issue but worth noting as a minor annoyance. Side note: in case you think the glass doors won't stay open, push them flush with the housing and they will! Final words: if you are using this for concessions as we are I think you'll be pleased with this machine but if you're a large school like us you may want to consider a larger housing. We might still get a second one next season given the great price and speed and great popped result. But given an endless budget I'd still spring for a model with a larger housing.

Used it for hours and had no problem. Easy to use.

We purchased for a church movie night (rather than renting) and we are SO glad we did. This machine is the perfect size, and can output lots of DELICIOUS theater-quality popcorn QUICKLY. It's VERY easy to operate, and the countertop size makes it ultra-portable for any venue. It fits in the car easily, and can sit on existing counter, table, or I often bring my own 2'x4' folding rubbermaid table. We use it often! Honestly, the smell of fresh-popped corn, as well as the fun visual of the theater-style popping makes any event seem extra fun! My daughter's 5th grade class was having a movie day after finishing a novel study.... I brought this machine in and made popcorn and you would have thought I was handing out $100 bills! Teachers from other rooms came running down to get some. :) I HIGHLY recommend using the Great Northern prepackaged "tri-pack" popcorn kits (that come with the kernels, oil, & butter flavored salt all in one)! This brand is amazing, and the pre-measured packs make it easy to keep the popcorn moving fastnwhen you've got a crowd. It's a little tedious to clean if you're going to do a good job, but it's worth it. Don't wait on this one... buy it!

The popcorn machine works well after watching a video on how much oil to use. The only thing is I cannot find the kettle after using it in the carnival I cannot find the kettle for the inside of the machine, but will buy again . I only wish it was cheaper.

We run a film festival and don't have a dedicated theatre for screenings, which means we bring everything with us -- screen, projector, sound equipment and concessions! We almost purchased a smaller tabletop popcorn machine because it was less expensive, but for a little more money, we definitely got a lot more in volume and quality. This is a top-notch machine that makes fresh popcorn quickly and helps set the mood for a great film screening experience. It is big though, so make sure to check the measurements. Perfect for our purposes!

My only dislike with this popcorn machine is that it cost $200 more in Canada than it does in the United States. The machine works well it Cooks a lot of popcorn and if you have the yellow coconut oil and Flavacol you will have movie theatre style popcorn

Very nice machine. Served well over 500 people with popcorn during a 3 hour picnic. Tastes just like Theater popcorn, maybe better. Used the pre-measured popcorn pouches and was perfect every time.

Love this popcorn machine, very easy to use, love everything about it and pops very quickly. So far it is working great.

Worked fine the few times we ended up using it. Does get really hot so have to watch the kernels do not burn but made good popcorn. We purchased it for commercial use at small craft shows but never ended up taking it as it was too heavy to move about. Ended up selling it