About FEZZIWIG'S...

Fezziwig's Marketplace opened for business on October 4, 2007.  The store is the creation of a concept by Tim Moore and his wife, Ellen Leaf-Moore.  Ellen has nearly twenty years experience in retail management, most recently with Williams-Sonoma and Pottery Barn and with Doreen Leaf Designs prior to that.  Tim has over thirty years experience in marketing and sales management with two large national companies.  After moving to Lebanon in 2002 and getting married in 2004, they fell in love with Lebanon's history and brick-streeted downtown.  With their combined retail and marketing knowledge, they hoped to someday open their own business in Lebanon. 

In the spring of 2007, they began talking to different business people in search of a location that might be for sale or lease.  In May, they discovered that the owners of Heritage Antiques and The British Grocery Shop wanted to retire. 

Tim and Ellen had a business plan in place and quickly attended markets to order merchandise for the store.  The original concept was to be a gourmet food store that also sold fine wines, craft beers and gourmet cheeses.  They both enjoyed cooking and entertaining and felt their experience would help the business grow. 

Once the business opened, they began to discover other products that made a great fit in their store.  Ellen was a lover of loose leaf teas.  Loose leaf teas were fresher than bagged teas and provided more flavor and aroma.  They started with about twenty teas in the spring of 2008 and the customer love affair with Fezziwig's Tea began.  The selection continued to grow.  At the same time, their wine business was growing and space was becoming a problem.  The adjoining store to the east had ceased operations.  Tim and Ellen agreed to lease the space if they could cut an opening from the existing store into the new store.  The expansion work began in the summer of 2008 and opened on the last week of September just one year after their original opening!  The wine and cheese business moved into the new space and the tea business took over the former wine and cheese space.  In May of 2008, they finished out the open air space behind the original building and made it into a garden courtyard to enjoy wines and teas.  It also signaled the start of live music at Fezziwig's.  At the end of 2008, Fezziwig's abandoned the craft beer business and expanded their wine selections.

In October of 2009, the space occupied by the wine and cheese business was now joined by two new market segments...Fezziwig's Confections featuring Bissinger's Chocolates and Candies and the Olive Oil and Balsamic Vinegar Tasting Station. 

Fezziwig's continues to grow despite tough America's tough economic conditions.  The store encompasses about 5,000 square feet in all.  "Our customers and our sales associates are our lifeblood.  Without them, Fezziwig's would not have grown to where it is today," says owner Tim Moore.  "We will always look for new and exciting products to keep our customers coming back to Fezziwig's.  Our customers give us some of our best ideas," says owner Ellen Leaf-Moore. 

About the FEZZIWIG'S name...

Here's the story on how we named the store FEZZIWIG'S.  Everyone asks, so we'll tell you.

In 1842, 30 year-old British author Charles Dickens came to America writing a book appropriately named American Notes.  He traveled with an entourage of 13 men and went as far west as St. Louis.  St. Louis, like many large cities of that time, was not the cleanest places.  He wanted to come to an area called the looking glass prairie in Illinois.  After first traveling through Belleville, Illinois, his group traveled onward to Lebanon.  Dickens and his group stayed at the Mermaid House Inn on St. Louis Street, an inn built in 1830 by Lyman Adams, an old ship's captain.  Dickens found the inn comfortable and spent the next morning walking the streets of Lebanon.  In American Notes, he wrote a chapter titled A Jaunt to the Looking Glass Prairie and Back, where he speaks of the inn and Lebanon by name.

Upon Dickens return to London, he completed his book.  The following year, Dickens wrote his now famous A Christmas Carol.  The main character in the book, Ebenezer Scrooge is haunted by three ghosts.  The first ghost, The Ghost of Christmas Past, takes Scrooge back to his youth where he worked for the jovial and benevolent Old Fezziwig.

With Lebanon's ties to Dickens and the only Illinois town where he stayed overnight, we felt it appropriate to name our shop for one of his characters in one of his books.  We selected Fezziwig's.  The rest is history.