Yummy Pop
Scarlett Johansson opened a gourmet popcorn shop in one of the most expensive neighborhoods in Paris. The lines on opening day were around the block, and the business was dissolved less than four years later.
Scarlett Johansson is the highest-grossing female actor in box office history, and in October 2016 she stood behind the counter of a 30-square-meter popcorn shop in Paris, scooping truffle parmesan into paper bags for €5.50 a pop while hundreds of people waited in line outside. The business was legally dissolved in March 2020, and today the only trace of Yummy Pop is a “permanently closed” badge on Yelp.
Johansson opened the shop with her then-husband Romain Dauriac, a French advertising executive, though by the time the doors actually opened, the two had already separated, and she filed for divorce five months later.
At a glance:
| Founded | October 2016 by Scarlett Johansson and Romain Dauriac |
| Location | 35 bis rue du Roi de Sicile, Le Marais, Paris (4th arrondissement) |
| Concept | Gourmet popcorn shop with seasonal flavors |
| Menu | Created by Will Horowitz (Ducks Eatery, Harry & Ida’s, NYC) |
| Pricing | €5.50 (small), €10.50 (medium), €15 (large) |
| Dissolved | March 2020 |
| Why it closed | No scalable business model, co-founders divorcing, single-product retail in a premium location |
The Story
A popcorn shop with a famous face
The idea was Johansson’s, born out of the time she and Dauriac had been splitting between New York and Paris since their 2014 wedding. She wanted a project tied to the city, and popcorn was having a minor moment in Parisian food culture, with gourmet snack shops popping up alongside burger joints and Brooklyn-themed everything. She brought in Will Horowitz, a New York chef known for Ducks Eatery and Harry & Ida’s on the Lower East Side, to develop the menu.
The shop launched with six flavors: truffle parmesan and sage (Johansson’s favorite), Vermont maple (her daughter Rose’s favorite), Vermont cheddar (Dauriac’s favorite), sea salt and olive oil, strawberries and cream, and chocolate-covered strawberries, all of which would rotate seasonally based on available fresh ingredients. If the first location did well, the couple said they planned to open more.
Opening day in the Marais
Yummy Pop opened with a soft launch on October 22, 2016, in Le Marais, one of the most expensive and heavily foot-trafficked neighborhoods in Paris, on rue du Roi de Sicile, a narrow street in the 4th arrondissement. The interior was styled like a red-white-and-blue barbershop with slogans like “pop till you drop” on the walls and American oldies on the soundtrack.
Johansson worked the counter on opening weekend in a white Yummy Pop apron, and the foot traffic was immediate. Passersby stopped to photograph the shop, two American study-abroad students Instagrammed it, and the truffle parmesan and Canadian maple sold out before the end of the day. A French woman stopped to ask what the commotion was about, and when she learned they only serve popcorn, she offered one word: “Très bizarre.”
The Hollywood Reporter sent a reviewer who found the truffle parmesan too dominated by the parmesan, both savory flavors a smidge too salty, and the maple the standout, before closing with the line that said everything the review didn’t: “At $6 for a small, $11.50 for a medium and $16.30 for a large, it remains to be seen if Yummy Pop will stick.”
What Worked
The press was enormous
Every major entertainment and lifestyle outlet covered the opening: the Hollywood Reporter, E! News, InStyle, Bonjour Paris, The Forward, The Local France, News24, and the Times of Israel. The coverage was global and instant, and for a single popcorn shop with no advertising budget, the earned media value of the opening alone was worth more than most food startups spend on marketing in their first year.
The product was competent, with reviews from customers on Tripadvisor and Yelp ranging from positive to enthusiastic, and the seasonal rotation kept the menu from going stale while the Marais location guaranteed foot traffic from tourists and locals alike. But the press wasn’t about the popcorn. It was about seeing a movie star in an apron, and that distinction would turn out to be the whole problem.
The Numbers
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 2014 | Johansson and Dauriac marry in Montana |
| Summer 2016 | The couple separates (reported January 2017) |
| October 22, 2016 | Yummy Pop soft-launches in Le Marais |
| December 2016 | Grand opening party, the last time Johansson and Dauriac are photographed together |
| January 2017 | People reports the couple split “last summer” |
| March 2017 | Johansson files for divorce in New York |
| September 2017 | Divorce finalized under sealed settlement |
| March 2020 | Yummy Pop legally dissolved (French corporate registry) |
No revenue figures were ever disclosed, and as a single retail location selling bags of popcorn at €5.50 to €15, the ceiling was structurally low. Even at full capacity with steady foot traffic, a 30-square-meter shop in Le Marais is not a high-margin business, with retail rents in the neighborhood running €1,700 to €4,500 per month depending on size and position, and that’s before staff, ingredients, equipment, and the licensing fees for a celebrity-adjacent brand.
The Turning Point
A divorce before the doors opened
The couple separated in the summer of 2016, which means Yummy Pop opened in October with a marriage that was already functionally over, and by the time the shop’s grand opening party happened in December, the split was private but complete.
Johansson filed for divorce in March 2017, seeking joint custody of their daughter Rose, while Dauriac’s lawyer told the press he was “shocked.” The divorce was finalized in September 2017 under a sealed settlement in Manhattan Supreme Court, and from that point on, the one thing that had drawn massive crowds to the shop, Johansson herself, was gone. She was filming in the United States, Dauriac was running his advertising agency in Paris, and neither co-founder was positioned to give the business the daily attention a single retail location demands.
What Went Wrong
The foot traffic was for her, not the popcorn
On opening weekend, hundreds of people showed up to Instagram the shop, photograph Johansson behind the counter, and buy a bag of popcorn, which is the classic celebrity retail trap: the first wave of customers comes for the person, not the product, and when the person leaves, the product has to stand on its own.
A bag of gourmet popcorn for €15 in a city where you can buy a fresh crêpe for €4 is a hard sell once the novelty wears off, and the product needed to generate repeat visits from locals rather than one-time purchases from tourists who wanted to see Black Widow scoop popcorn. There’s no evidence the shop ever built a customer base that returned regularly once the press cycle ended.
No business model beyond one small room
Yummy Pop was a single retail location with no path to scale: no e-commerce, no wholesale, no branded packaged product in grocery stores, no franchise model. One shop, one street, one neighborhood. If the initial plan was to expand to multiple locations, the divorce killed that, and without expansion, the unit economics of artisanal popcorn in premium Parisian retail don’t sustain a business.
Compare that to what Johansson built later. The Outset, her skincare brand launched in 2022, started DTC, entered Sephora within two months, raised $5 to $10 million from Najafi Companies, hired a CEO with operational experience in Kate Foster (who had built and sold her own startup), and has grown to an estimated $10 to $25 million in annual revenue. The Outset was built to scale. Yummy Pop was built to exist.
The co-founder relationship was already over
Johansson and Dauriac opened a business together while going through a separation, and the shop needed someone in Paris running day-to-day operations that neither of them could provide. Dauriac had his own company to manage, Johansson’s filming schedule kept her on the other side of the Atlantic, and by 2017 they were in a custody dispute rather than a business partnership.
What You Can Learn
Celebrity attention is a grand opening, not a business model. The press that Yummy Pop generated for free would have cost a normal food startup tens of thousands of dollars, but none of it converted into a sustainable business because there was nothing behind the celebrity to sustain. If your business only works when you’re in the room, it’s an appearance, not a company.
Single-location retail is the hardest way to build a business. One shop means one revenue stream, one lease, one set of fixed costs with no way to spread them, and every successful food brand that started with a single location, whether it’s Crumbl, Drybar, or the neighborhood bakery that actually makes it, had a plan to become more than one room. Yummy Pop didn’t.
Don’t start a business with someone you’re leaving. A business partnership requires trust, shared goals, and aligned timelines, while a divorce requires the opposite. The shop opened during a separation and dissolved during a custody settlement, which means the business never had a chance to become the priority for either founder.
The contrast between Yummy Pop and The Outset is the real lesson. In 2016, Johansson opened a popcorn shop on a whim with her soon-to-be-ex-husband, and in 2020, she spent a year finding the right co-founder before taking two more years to develop products. She raised real capital, hired experienced operators, and built distribution beyond a single storefront, because the difference between a celebrity brand that vanishes and one that lasts isn’t the celebrity, it’s whether the business was built like a business.
Frequently Asked Questions
What was Yummy Pop?
A gourmet popcorn shop opened by Scarlett Johansson and her then-husband Romain Dauriac in Le Marais, Paris, in October 2016, serving six rotating flavors of artisanal popcorn at prices ranging from €5.50 to €15 per bag.
Why did Yummy Pop close?
No official statement was ever made, though the business was legally dissolved in March 2020 according to French corporate records. The most likely factors were the divorce in 2017, which removed the operational partnership, combined with the lack of a business model beyond a single retail location selling a niche product in an expensive neighborhood.
Did Scarlett Johansson lose money on Yummy Pop?
Probably, though no financial details were ever disclosed. The shop was self-funded and operated for roughly three to four years in one of the most expensive retail districts in Paris, but for an actor earning $15 to $20 million per film, the financial loss was likely negligible. The larger cost was reputational, as it became a punchline in celebrity-business-failure roundups.
What did Scarlett Johansson do after Yummy Pop?
In 2020, she began developing The Outset, a minimalist skincare brand, with co-founder and CEO Kate Foster. The brand launched in March 2022, entered Sephora within two months, and has grown to an estimated $10 to $25 million in annual revenue, with Johansson saying she spent three years educating herself on the beauty industry before launching.
Sources
- Hollywood Reporter, “Inside Scarlett Johansson’s Paris Popcorn Shop,” October 2016. Opening details, menu, pricing, flavor reviews, location description.
- Bonjour Paris, “Popcorn in Paris: Scarlett Johansson Opens Shop in the Marais,” October 2016. Menu by Will Horowitz, flavor details, plan for additional locations.
- SheKnows, “Scarlett Johansson’s Getting Divorced, But What About the Gourmet Popcorn Store?!” January 2017. Separation timeline, business partnership status during split.
- E! News, “Scarlett Johansson’s Parisian Popcorn Shop,” October 2016. Opening coverage, celebrity business context.
- Time, “Scarlett Johansson and Romain Dauriac Split After Two Years of Marriage,” January 2017. Divorce timeline.
- Washington Post, “Scarlett Johansson Files for Divorce,” March 2017. Divorce filing, custody details, Dauriac lawyer quote.
- Societe.com, “Yummy Pop (SIREN 804462711)”. French corporate registry, dissolution date March 2020.
- Inc., “When Scarlett Johansson Wanted to Launch a Skin Care Company, She Didn’t Settle for Just Any Co-Founder,” December 2023. The Outset development timeline, Kate Foster partnership, three-year education period.
- Fast Company, “Scarlett Johansson’s Beauty Brand, The Outset, Is Growing the Organic Way,” 2023. The Outset revenue context, growth strategy, Sephora timeline.