After fire, Simple Soap pops up with kiosk
Alex Fitzgerald was alone at work in her cosmetics store Simple when a fire broke out in the roof, at about 11 p.m. on Nov. 15 – and although she escaped unhurt, it took her awhile to even realize the building was ablaze that night.
“I was in there 20 minutes at least – and didn’t even know the roof had caught fire,” she said.
Firtz gerald was busy working, at the time.
In the 12 weeks before Christmas, she typically spends her nights cooking up handmade soaps, bath bombs and other cosmetics.
Never mind commuting home to Ajax around the holidays: she usually stays in the shop, toiling flat-out.
“I work around the clock, for Christmas,” she said in an interview on Thursday. “In September, October, November – if I’m awake, I’m working. I do triple shifts.”
When the fire started that night, she sensed something was amiss: there was a noise in the ducts that sounded to her like hail.
When she went to check on those ducts, she noticed the orange glow of flames through a grate to the upper floor.
Seconds later, the shop filled with smoke and Fitzgerald fled in her work boots, leaving her purse and winter coat behind.
Meanwhile someone across the street at the bar Shots had seen the flames and called 911.
The fire burned through the night at 372 George St. N., with firefighters soaking the buildings next door to keep the flames from spreading.
Fitzgerald stood on the sidewalk for as long as she could bear, shivering and watching the shop she’d rented for 16 years burn.
“It was bloody awful,” she said. Fitzgerald lost everything in her shop, that night: all her equipment, plus the ingredients she’d ordered in bulk, in September, to fill demand for the busy holiday season.
Yet it didn’t put her of business. On Thursday, she opened a kiosk in the main level of Peterborough Square where she’s selling bath bombs, her holiday best-sellers.
Those bath bombs are made in Peterborough Square, too: mall management rented the vacant Peterborough Eats location in the food court (formerly Treats) to Fitzgerald.
She’ s using the commercial kitchen there, and she’s been loaned equipment such as trays and mixers.
Fitzgerald said she was also fortunate that suppliers were able to get her 800 pounds of baking soda, for bath bomb production: “People scraped it from the corners of warehouses and delivered it overnight.”
She still can’t quite believe how generous people have been, providing her with all she needs to offer bath bombs in time for Christmas.
“There’s no way we should be open,” she said.
At least one other business remains closed: Natas Café, next door to Simple, was flooded as firefighters hosed down the building.
Natas has been posting progress reports on its Facebook page; it says they expect to reopen before Christmas.
Ash Naylor Photography was also located in the upper level of 372 George St. N.; at the scene on Nov. 15, Naylor said she didn’t have any equipment there at the time.
Deputy Fire Chief Chad Brown said on Thursday that the fire occurred around the heating unit in the roof, although it’s still unclear whether that heating unit was faulty.
Brown said the fire was contained in the roof and that it was fortunate it didn’t spread to any neighbouring buildings.
He also said there’s still no exact damage estimate, although Fire Chief Chris Snetsinger estimated in November that it would be in excess of $500,000.
While engineers have been through the building, Brown said it’s not clear yet whether 372 George St. N. is salvageable or will have to be torn down.
But Fitzgerald said she won’t be returning to her former shop, even if the building is restored: she was already planning to move by April 1 and had spent much of last summer looking for a new location.
She said she’d like to locate permanently in Peterborough Square and that may happen next spring (although her plans haven’t been finalized).
Fitzgerald is no stranger to Peterborough Square: it’s where she started out.
She said her business started out as a booth in the mall at Christmas 17 years ago.
At the time, she was a graphic designer who liked to make her own soaps and bath bombs so she tried selling from a booth. Business was brisk, so she opened her shop.
“And here I am, back at the mall,” she said on Thursday, adding that she’s grateful to management at Peterborough Square that went out of their way to help her recently.
“They’ve been nothing but accommodating.”