On February 23, Fitz’s Fish Ponds LLC suffered a devasting fire at their new location at 373 Route 22, Green Brook, NJ. This 11,000 square foot location housed the offices, retail store, and warehouse for the entire company. The fire was large and spread so quickly that the fire departments and first responders could not extinguish it and they lost everything.
Fitz’s Fish Ponds had just moved into this new location on Route 22 East in Green Brook in October, 2018 which was only 1.5 miles from the old location in Bound Brook where they were for 4 years.
“Our team spent the entire winter preparing the new space for our big launch planned for Spring 2019,” commented Brian Fitzsimmons, Owner of Fitz’s Fish Ponds. The new location was completely renovated and included a fully stocked retail store, stunning showroom with large 5000 gallon show pond for the Japanese Koi, fountain displays, putting green, an outdoor barbeque display in addition to a unique retail area where customers could walk on a bridge to view the 4ft high tanks to view and choose the Koi of their choice. All slated for the biggest and best Koi vendor on the East Coast.
The fire was devastating and a true blow to not only the business but our whole team. “We put everything we had into building our new exciting showroom, retail store and warehouse. Seeing our business suffer 100 percent loss was difficult to comprehend.” adds Fitzsimmons. “The blessing in all of the chaos was there were no injuries to our team or any of the first responders who worked hard to put out the fire.”
After taking a day after the fire to accept the reality that everything was gone, Fitzsimmons and his management team found an office space a mile away and started to regroup and rebuild. The big items that had to be figured out was what was actually lost and what needs to be reordered not to mention recapturing keys to the company’s vehicles as well as the business records, etc. One of the immediate concerns was to find a new headquarters for Fitz’s Fish Ponds and get settled before the arrival of the imported Japanese Koi that are scheduled to arrive in April.
Prior to the fire, Fitzsimons had started conversations about possibly opening a Pond and Garden Center at the former Fairfield Garden Center location, which supported the pond community for over 52 years. Since the fire left Fitz’s Fish Ponds without a retail space, the decision to move forward and open a retail pond supply and Koi store was easy. This Spring we are excited to announce that our new company, Fairfield Fitz’s Fish Ponds, LLC will be opening at 445 US 46 West, Fairfield NJ 07004, formerly Fairfield Garden Center.
We are excited to announce that we are opening both retail stores on Friday, March 29 with limited stock. On Friday, May 3, our stores will be complete with the arrival of our shipment of Japanese Koi! Please stop by for all your pond needs! If we don’t have it, we will get it!! It’s been a rough couple of weeks but we are thrilled to be back and serving our communities!!
Once again, we just want to let everyone know that we are so grateful fo all the kind words of encouragement and support we have received from friends, family, clients and the pond community all over the world. Thank you for the continued support, we are looking forward to having a great 2019.
