With renovation, downtown Wilmington shop adds a second storefront, more food finds

Allison Ballard, Wilmington StarNews
·3 min read
Cape Fear Spice Merchants, at 20 Market St. in downtown Wilmington, offers a large selection of spices, teas and other food-and-drink finds.
Cape Fear Spice Merchants, at 20 Market St. in downtown Wilmington, offers a large selection of spices, teas and other food-and-drink finds.

Gary Coleman Jr. jokes that Cape Fear Spice Merchants shop in downtown Wilmington is the ideal post-retirement job – just one that occupies about 60 or so hours a week. He and his wife, Sue Coleman, opened the store in 2014 at 20 Market St.

Since then, though, the spices, cookbooks and teas started to overfill the space. This year, they’ve completed a unique renovation, which connects their existing shop with a new storefront at 6 S. Front St. in the former Finkelstein's.

“We had to cut through three layers of brick, and what they think was a chimney,” Gary Coleman said.

Now, Cape Fear Spice Merchants has an L-shaped shop, with the Unleashed pet store on the corner between. The new space adds a larger kitchen area, an office and break space for the staff. There’s also a display and sample area, and the Colemans say they are planning to host monthly events, as well as informal tastings.

Already, they've noticed an uptick in foot traffic with the new entrance and have been able to spread out their unique selection of food-and-drink products for easier shopping. Here’s a look.

With a unique renovation, Cape Fear Spice Merchants now has two storefronts in downtown Wilmington, on Market and Front streets.
With a unique renovation, Cape Fear Spice Merchants now has two storefronts in downtown Wilmington, on Market and Front streets.

  • The first official Cape Fear Spice Merchants event was a Mad Hatter's Tea Party that took place earlier this month, with tea-based cocktails and mocktails. The next one is in the works for September and will have an Octoberfest theme.

  • Cape Fear Spice Merchants still has a large selection of teas and spices located in the original storefront.  The new storefront has other goodies, like oils and vinegars, gifts and chocolate bars.

  • The shop carries Lodge cookware, including some pieces designed in collaboration with the chefs and those made with a lighter alloy and aren’t as heavy. They also carry a selection of honeys and other products from Savannah Bee Company.

  • Look for tastings on Saturdays. Coleman said they're planning some with a local kombucha maker. Another popular product for tastings ia a line of Anderson House Frontier Soup mixes. "Once people try them, they're hooked," he said.

  • A cocktail section offers different bitters, mixes, syrups and cherries for making drinks at home, although Coleman said it's become a popular spot for local bartenders to pick up ingredients, too.

  • An expanded kitchen in the original shop is where you can get made-to-order teas and coffees. They also plan to do in-house dehydrating of ingredients like citrus and celery for some of their products.

  • An old safe from Finkelstein's is still in the store, as is a display case used at the music store. You can see a few of the odds and ends they found during the renovation, and a selection of teapots from the Colemans’ collection.

More: Here's the tea from our interview with Wilmington's Queen Esther

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Allison Ballard is the food and dining reporter at the StarNews. You can reach her ataballard@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: Cape Fear Spice Merchants new look, bigger space in downtown Wilmington