Fresno Famous

On paper, Teazer World Tea Market couldn't have looked too promising — a tea shop directly across the street from a well-established coffee house and within spitting distance of a Starbucks? A hang-out spot with no Wi Fi, no fancy TV screens, no distractions, just tea — loose leaf, bottled, iced, or blended.

But the Tower District shop has become the it place for the über cool from all parts of Fresno — from Tower-ites and downtownies to north-Fresno and Clovis kids — and is linked to Portland expatriates like Eatcho and Josh Wigger.

The latter's work can be seen on the side of the building.

The shop just celebrated its third anniversary and already Ann McAtee, who opened the shop with Ferry Santoso, is looking to expand.

But not into another tea shop.

Teazer Global Bizaar will open sometime before the holiday season, selling incense burners, hand-carved statues, Indian and Asian-inspired oil paintings and Chinese imports. It's the knick-knack type stuff you've seen before, McAtee says, just not in Fresno. She also hopes to continue working with local crafters and artists.

The store will keep Teazer's relaxed vibe of soft, cool colors — the interior painted in hues of purple and blue, the ceilings decorated with large hanging lanterns.

McAtee has been sitting on the new space, just two doors down from the original shop, for nine months, using it for storage and as an office — an idea she picked up from Starbucks. Expanding it to an actual store, just seemed like a logical progression, she says.

The idea is — has always been — about community building, McAtee says. Opening Teazer across from the Revue was no accident, she says. She'll be the first to send a customer across the street— if they want coffee.

She'd like the Tower District to be a destination for the smaller towns that satellite Fresno.

So, maybe three years ago Teazer didn't look so good on paper. But that didn't stop McAtee. That's how it is starting a business, she says.

“You're that one person to know that it will work.”

So you work the 14-hour days, you serve your chilled mango green tea with mango syrup, fresh lemon juice and Hawaiian cane sugar, and you show people wrong.

Because people can find 100 reasons why you'll fail. And that, McAtee doesn't have time for.

“I really don't have time to convince you.”