Carla DeRasmo and Ken Nercessian, co-owners of NYC Kettle Corn. (Melissa Schuman – MediaNews Group)

CAPITAL REGION, N.Y. — If you’re looking for a tasty snack that’s good anytime and anywhere, you can’t go wrong with popcorn.

That’s a philosophy that Ken Nercessian and Carla DeRasmo, co-owners of NYC Kettle Corn, have been sharing with happy customers since 2004.

As the company name suggests, NYC Kettle Corn — also called Nercessian Kettle Corn — got its start in New York City. Nercessian, a successful chef in a hotel restaurant, wanted to start a catering business but didn’t have the expertise. A friend suggested making and selling kettle corn as a side job, so Nercessian tried his hand at it.

The company debuted at a city street fair, and began growing in popularity.

Nercessian began experimenting with different flavors of popcorn, using trial and error to find flavor combinations that were popular with customers. Before long his popcorn was catching the attention of television programs such as Food Network’s “Unwrapped” and WNBC’s “New York Live,” boosting the company’s popularity even faster.

In 2013, DeRasmo joined the team and the two have been together ever since.

“We are work partners and life partners,” DeRasmo explained. “It simplifies things because we’re on the same path. We’re both Type A personalities and we both work hard to get the job done.”

By 2014, the company was so popular that a Kickstarter campaign was held to raise funds for a food truck, and a year later they made the purchase. The popularity of their products continued to skyrocket – and then, like hundreds of other companies, things came to a screeching halt in 2020 when the pandemic shut down the city.

Nercessian and DeRasmo took their food truck and drove up to the Capital Region to shelter in place and wait out the virus. Originally from Colonie, the pair had been commuting to New York City four days a week before the shutdown. They shifted their business to all online orders, which kept them afloat for the first few months of the pandemic.

But by that summer, online sales had dropped off.

In the nick of time, restrictions in the Capital Region began to ease while New York City was still tightly shuttered. Albany County Executive Daniel McCoy started an initiative to help food-based small businesses by allowing them to sell their products along the Helderberg-Hudson Rail Trail. It was the Capital Region’s introduction to NYC Kettle Corn.

From there, the company’s popularity began growing just as quickly as it had in New York City. Nercessian and DeRasmo began getting invites to sell at other venues and events. In 2021, Nercessian made the decision to have the Capital Region be the new permanent base of operations. A second food truck was purchased, and the pair have been sharing their delicious popcorn here ever since.

These days, you can find the NYC Kettle Corn trucks all over Rensselaer County and beyond. Popular spots include the Schaghticoke Fair in the summer, Windy Hill Orchard in the fall, and the East Greenbush Bowling Center and the Troy Walmart plaza just about any other time of the year. This year they also branched into Saratoga County, with a regular spot next door to Garden Gate Florist in Clifton Park.

DeRasmo recommends using the company’s website and social media to track their location, which can change quickly for a variety of reasons such as staffing or weather.

“We knew we wanted to get into Saratoga County,” DeRasmo said. “We’re bringing in a lot of traffic and helping the businesses here. That’s the beauty of a food truck — with a brick and mortar store, the novelty dies out and then you’re stuck paying rent. We can go where the demand is.”

This isn’t to say that Nercessian and DeRasmo just park the trucks wherever they can find space. They always make deals with the landlords of the sites they sell at and they always pay for their space. Locations are also restricted by permit availability. For every spot they do sales at, they need a permit to go with it.

“We love Rensselaer County, because it’s so easy to get permits here,” commented DeRasmo.

In addition to the two food trucks, NYC Kettle Corn’s online store is in full swing. Online sales come in from all over the country, including two prominent clients in their original New York City location. NYC Kettle Corn has fifteen regular flavors that are always on hand, which are all gluten-free and peanut-free, and some special flavors that rotate depending on ingredient availability.

Flavors range from sweet to savory and from mild to spicy. Stop by one of the food truck locations and DeRasmo is happy to hand out samples of anything you’d like to try. The original kettle corn recipe is the most popular flavor, followed by their caramel corn.

“There’s a flavor for everyone,” DeRasmo said. “We want you to be happy with what you buy. Popcorn makes people happy.”

What makes NYC Kettle Corn’s popcorn so popular? DeRasmo suspects it has to do with the flavor varieties.

“Nobody else does this. It’s very rare to see a company that does the variety of flavors,” she said. “And it’s fresh. We get an order, and we make it immediately.”

“Some of our flavors depended on what our vendors had available for us when we started making them,” Nercessian explained. “I tried them out and kept the popular hits. I’m a spicy fan, and I developed my own blend for the spicy flavors. It’s a secret recipe.”

There’s also a lot to be said for the process that’s used to craft the popcorn. It’s all done by hand, using mushroom kernel popcorn popped in a giant kettle over direct flame.

“Anybody can use machines. There’s an art form to hand popping and stirring the kernels,” DeRasmo explained. “It’s a skill not everyone can do. It’s a craft that Ken has mastered over the years. The flavors get infused when he’s stirring, so every kernel gets coated the way it needs to be done.”

It’s a labor-intensive process, but if customer reviews and the long lines in front of the food trucks are any indication, it’s well worth the effort. (On a personal note, my Friday night gaming crew is now addicted to NYC Kettle Corn after I brought a variety of flavors to game one week.)

“Not in my wildest dreams did I ever think this would become my full-time job,” Nercessian said. “I love that it makes people happy. They come back week after week for their kettle corn. It makes for purposeful living.”

What’s next for NYC Kettle Corn? Next year the company will celebrate its 20th anniversary in business. DeRasmo says she’d like to focus on growing more corporate accounts. The food trucks are available to rent for private parties and special occasions, and she’d like to eventually see the company start selling in Saratoga Springs. She’s also open to the idea of hiring more staff – send an email to Info@KettleCornNYC.com if you’d like to apply. But she and Nercessian aren’t looking to grow much more than they already have.

“We’re a small shop with a great team of people who help us to present a great product to our customers,” she said. “I’d like to keep doing that.”

For more information about NYC Kettle Corn, including locations and their full online store, visit https://kettlecornnyc.com/. Follow on social media at https://www.facebook.com/kettlecornnyc/ and https://www.instagram.com/kettlecornnyc/.

Would you like a business in Rensselaer County or the surrounding areas to be featured in an upcoming Small Business Spotlight? We’d love to hear about it at mschuman@saratogian.com!