Initial headline: “Fizzle-Bean and Friends to reopen after small fire, big flood”
Publication date: March 15
Main player: The Fizzle-Bean and Friends Country Store
Story then: Sisters Colleen Buddemeyer and Patty Trebes reopened Fizzle-Bean and Friends Country Store in Perry Hall after a small fire in January caused the store’s sprinklers to run for 30 minutes, flooding the store.
Two months later, the store’s shelves were restocked with Fizzle-Bean’s signature pie-shaped candles and other crafts and home items from local vendors.
“We’re not a chain, we’re not Hallmark,” Buddemeyer said at the time. “We’re the only thing like this around, since the country stores at White Marsh closed.”
Story now: A flood couldn’t put Buddemeyer and Trebes out of business, but an economic low tide, one of the worst in U.S. history, eventually did.
The Fizzle-Bean store closed in October, a victim of plunging retail sales. The state’s sales tax receipts were down 7.5 percent in September and 2.5 percent for the year, according to the latest report from state Comptroller Peter Franchot, figures he called “depressingly low.”
“With retail down, we just couldn’t do it anymore,” Buddemeyer said. “We hadn’t seen any numbers like that in four years in business. There was no way to hold on.”
The sisters sold the candle production operation, based in Forest Hill, to friends in August 2007. date is CQ Products are available at fizzlebean.com and at a kiosk in Harford Mall through the holidays.
Buddemeyer and Trebes fell back on their family business, Middle River-based Sosco Corp., a manufacturer of custom gaskets for the defense industry. But Buddemeyer said they’re still on the hook for the store’s lease through August and haven’t found any businesses willing to sublet the space.
“Everyone’s going, where’s Fizzle-Bean’s bailout?” she asked.
— Aaron Cahall
