MESOPOTAMIA, Ohio – Stepping into the End of the Commons General Store evokes memories of a bygone era.
The original 1840 wooden floor creaks as you step inside. Varieties of penny candy line a wall near the front door. Old bicycles, license plates and northeastern Ohio memorabilia hang from the ceiling and fill a shelf along an upper wall.
It’s that nostalgia that attracted a production crew to the store where state routes 534 and 87 intersect to film scenes for a television movie.
“We had some movie producers that are shooting a movie for a nice family friendly channel and they had asked us if they could do some filming here for a couple days,” explained Peter Schaden, the store’s owner and president.
Producers visited the End of the Commons to determine if it would be a good site and then planned to film for a day.
“And once they got out here and found that they had a lot of really good options for filming, they ended up doing two 12-hour filming days,” Schaden said.
That was last month. Andrew Garcia, production manager with Upside Media, said the movie will air on a cable television network although plans haven’t been finalized for which one. An air date will be determined when plans with a network are nailed down.
It’s a romantic comedy about a princess of an unidentified European country who leaves her castle to learn about life as a commoner.
“So she comes to America and she wants to work on a farm so she lands in Mesopotamia, Ohio,” Garcia said. “She befriends a motel worker there that lets her stay there for free. She comes to this small town where everyone treats her nicely and she gets a job on a farm and ends up falling in love with the farmer and they live happily ever after.”
The store’s name is included in the movie as is the township and Clarksville Sweets, a chocolate maker also owned by the Schadens and located on the same property.
A flower farm in Burton and Punderson Manor Lodge & Conference Center in Newbury Township were filming sites too.
“The princess’s grandmother also came to the town, and she helped grow flowers [on the flower farm] and she met and fell in love with the sweet shop owner so that all sort of ties into the story as well,” Garcia said.
The Punderson lodge serves as the princess’s castle in the movie.
Garcia said the owners of the production company have Ohio roots. They grew up in Solon.
Several township residents act as extras in the movie. Schaden’s wife, Crystal, even got a line in the film.
“They did that with several local people, so the local people really enjoyed it,” Schaden said.
He acknowledged that while the crew filmed for many hours, much of that won’t make the final cut. Still, he looks forward to its debut.
“It’ll be really neat for all of us to see it when it’s done,” he said.
Schaden’s parents bought End of the Commons in the 1980s after being customers for years. The family also owns a gas station, built in 1940, that was next to the store. In 2010, they expanded End of the Commons, adding 5,000 square feet and connecting it to the station. The new space allowed for more products and creation of the Commons Cafe which specializes in homemade Amish meals.
Fry pies made in the store are another popular item. Fruit or custard fills a semicircle of dough that’s dunked in a fryer and glazed. Varieties include cherry, apple, peach, blueberry cheesecake, chocolate and Bavarian.
Besides penny candy, the store sells an array of old fashioned sodas including its own root beer, as well as candy customers of a certain age will remember from childhood. There’s wax bottles filled with sugary liquid, button candy, Chuckles, Black Cow, Necco Wafers and Zagnut as well as Bazooka and Beemans gum.
Cheeses and meats fill a deli case while shelves are stocked with other bulk food items. A player piano provides musical accompaniment for shoppers’ visits and a petting zoo is another attraction, located behind the store.
Schaden said the store makes a nice day trip for northeastern Ohioans who crave nostalgia. Some of the items on display were donated by residents of surrounding communities and store employees hang photos of the previous owners next to their former possessions. Those people return and show the items – and their photographs – to their grandchildren.
The store’s owner said the film crew learned about the store from people in the other Ohio locations featured in the movie.
“They were filming in Burton and the Newbury farm scene, and one of those people told them that they think our general store and the whole setting out here would be pretty perfect for what they were looking for,” Schaden said.
“When they actually came out and looked at it, they thought it was perfect. So they used our town hall, they used our facade in the back that looks like a little village, so they filmed all that with a car driving down it, so actually it’s pretty much a small town movie already.”
Cutline: Peter Schaden, president and owner of the End of the Commons General Store in Mesopotamia.