Fishs Eddy was founded in 1986, when founders and current owners Julie Gaines and David Lenovitz got lost in
Upstate New York and stumbled upon a small town named
Fishs Eddy. Gaines and Lenovitz discovered an old
barn during that trip that had stockpiled
restaurant dishware that had survived a fire. They offered to buy the whole lot, took it back to their apartment in
Manhattan and used the inventory to open a store at
889 Broadway, near
Union Square. They additionally opened a warehouse in
Jersey City, New Jersey. A
graphic novel about the history of the story, by Gaines and illustrated by her and Lenovitz's son, called Minding the Store, was published in 2018. In 2021, Fishs Eddy started giving tours of its dinnerware collection, located on the second floor of the store, primarily featuring vintage "
namesake plates." In 2022, artist Ben Lenovitz started making and selling potratit sketches of
pets and animals at Fishs Eddy. In October 2025, another location opened on Front Street in the DUMBO neighborhood of Brooklyn, marking the second current location at that time, alongside the one near Union Square, as well as the second all-time location for the retailer in Brooklyn, replacing the location on Montague Street in the Brooklyn Heights section of the borough, which had briefly been open there before closing in 2007 due to rising rent costs. == Aesthetic ==