There’s a new smell in downtown Flagstaff that is enticing visitors and locals to a new gourmet popcorn and nut shop on Aspen Avenue.

Molly Howland and Nizar Olabi had a soft opening for Flagstaff Nut House in early June, just in time for First Friday ArtWalk.

The couple wasn’t planning on making sales that evening, but Click Downtown Flagstaff was hosting a gallery of local art work and the Nut House provided popcorn samples to go with Click’s beer samples.

“We had people asking if they could buy some, right then,” Howland said.

Both the popcorn and the nuts are roasted on a regular, sometimes hourly, basis in one half of the store front at 111 E. Aspen Ave.

“We use non-GMO, gluten free, free-trade organic nuts and popcorn,” Olabi said.

The popcorn comes in a variety of flavors — cheddar, kettle corn, caramel and movie-style are available fresh nearly every day. There is also plain popcorn with dried berries and nuts and plain, unsalted popcorn for those that are looking for something a little different.

They’re trying to keep the number of varieties of fresh popcorn small so as not to overwhelm customers with too many flavors, Olabi said. So they only add one funky new flavor to the offerings a week. This week its watermelon, but the week of July 4th it was blue raspberry.

“We weren’t sure how that was going to work it out. It was such an odd combination, but people loved it,” Howland said. “We had 90-year-old grandfathers coming back for more.”

They offer gift bags, boxes and tins that you can fill with whatever popcorn or nut combination you like. If you do buy a tin, hold onto it, because they offer a 20 percent discount on refills.

Howland and Olabi are also working with Northern Arizona University to provide popcorn and nuts for home games and possibly in the campus bookstores. Students and university employees who show their school IDs get a 10 percent discount.