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The epitome of a mom-and-pop five-and-10, the store and its owners have been a part of the town for generations.
By JULIANNE WU, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times, published November 24, 2002
TREASURE ISLAND -- After 44 years on the island, Fisher's is closing.
"We're looking at Dec. 14 as the last day for business," said Ed P. Fisher, co-owner with his wife, Suzanne. The Fishers are retiring for good. The past several years, their daughter, Lisa Fisher DeLorey, and son, Chris Fisher, have run the 107th Avenue business, properly known as Fisher's Variety and Hardware Store.
"We are going to liquidate our inventory and equipment," Ed Fisher said Tuesday. "Then we're going to rent out the building to someone else."
Regular customers have watched the five Fisher kids grow up in the variety store. Many of their own grown kids became customers.
"When I came in here the other day and found out they were closing, I cried," said Sandy Dorgan, a winter resident from Chicago. "I've been shopping here for 30 years. I come here every day. It's like family."
For most of its 44 years -- with Ed Fisher, now 65, running it for 34 of those years -- the store was known as Fisher's Five and Ten. Before they took over the store from Ed's parents in 1968, Suzanne was an English teacher and her husband worked first as a writer at the St. Petersburg Times and then as an assistant professor at the University of Florida.
"Originally, when my dad opened it, the store was located across the street," Ed said. "It was known as the Plaza 5 & 10." The plaque with that name still hangs in the back of the current store.
After running S.S. Kresge five-and-ten stores in Upper Darby, Pa., and Albany, N.Y., Edward G. Fisher and his wife, Eloise, opened their store in what is now considered Treasure Island's downtown. The elder Fisher, a former mayor and commissioner, died in 1993. His wife died in 2000.
The store has changed little, said Ed P. Fisher. "We did add a back part ," he said. And in the 1980s, the Fishers switched from handwritten purchase orders to a computerized system.
Customers could find Bic pens to bathing suits and crayons to greeting cards. There were washboards for sale for "elderly residents who liked to wash some of their clothes by hand," Fisher said.
In recent years, the store added hardware items and fishing supplies.
"Our most expensive items were the bathing suits," said Mrs. Fisher, 63. "They were $31.99, plus tax."
Besides being able to buy a stick of gum or some candy at five cents apiece, the Fishers allowed people to make photocopies for five cents a sheet.
"I've been shopping here for a long time," said Mary Kruger of Treasure Island. "If you couldn't find it elsewhere, you could always find it at Fisher's. It is a very unique store and we all hate to see it go."
While the Fishers said they never became rich, their store helped them get their kids through college. "With the help of student loans, of course," said Mrs. Fisher. The third generation of Fishers includes daughters Dawn Fisher Murphy, Aimee Fisher Platt, Lisa DeLorey and sons Ed P. Fisher Jr. and Chris Fisher. They all worked at the store at one time or another.
DeLorey, 29, said the closing is coming at a good time for her. "I'm just finishing up my master's degree in journalism at USF. It's time to move on to other things."
Her parents say they're ready to move on, too. "This will be the first Christmas Eve we won't have to work all day first," Ed said. "That's going to be nice, not having to be on a treadmill."
Said Suzanne: "People say they'll miss us, but they understand. Over the years, we've gotten to know many people by name. When they come into our store, it's like coming into our home."
The Fishers will divide their time between their Treasure Island home and a log cabin in North Carolina.
-- Times researchers Mary Mellstrom and Kitty Bennett assisted in this report.