Welcome to Emma & Co. Consignment Boutique!

The Story of Emma & Co. Consignment Boutique

Written by Emma & Co. Consignment Boutique's founder, Carrie Gendreau.

It was in her Junior year of homeschooling that Emmalee was studying the different aspects of being an entrepreneur.  She asked her Mom, Carrie, and Stepdad, Bill, if she could start a business instead of just reading about one.   They agreed.  

The first step was to find out what she wanted to pursue.  Emm and her Mom loved thrift and consignment shopping.  There was only one consignment shop in the area at the time so they decided that this may be the business to explore.

In 2007 there weren’t any open store fronts on Main Street in Littleton.   They kept researching consignment shops and learning more about what goes into owning and operating a business.  Emm and her Mom continued to visit and interview consignment shop owners.  One whole week while in Maine on vacation more brainstorming took place----what were they going to name their new consignment shop?

Another year went by and still nothing was open on Main Street.  Emm and her Mom kept researching and diving more into the nuts and bolts of the business aspect----How should they set it up? LLC, etc.

They started purchasing items for the new consignment store----no place, no name, but lots of excitement.

In late 2008 a 450 square foot store opened up on Main Street in Littleton.  Emm, by this time, was off to her first year of College in South Carolina.  Now they needed a name, and it was time to get to work renovating the new store.   

They decided that Emma & Co. Consignment Boutique would be perfect.  Emm’s full name is Emmalee Gretchen----3 generations of middle names (Emma, Lee, and Gretchen).  The “Emma” seemed to work.

A few short months they were ready to open.  The location soon became too small.  They moved up the street and tripled the space.  The first little humble location become Emma & Co. Children’s Boutique which was later sold, and the name was changed.

It was soon after moving to the second store location that six consignment stores had sprung up in Littleton.  The whole industry was taking off.  

After about three years the second store location proved to be getting smaller and it was time to move again. Again up the street----this time into a space of about 3,000 sq. ft.  After four years in this location and almost ten years of owning and operating Emma & Co. Consignment Boutique Carrie, Bill and Emm were ready to turn the baton over to a beautiful family of seven that had and will continue to move Emma & Co. to another exciting level.  This is where their story begins…….  

Meet the Owner

Hi there, I’m Tamar, the owner of Emma’s. I was born and raised in the Midwest where I met my husband at a little Christian college. We have been married going on 20+ amazing and adventurous years. We are blessed to have seven wonderful children, six boys and one girl…yes, one girl.

Our family lived in New England for twelve years while my husband served in the Navy and I homeschooled our children. As a stay-at-home mom, raising a large family on a single income I discovered a passion for secondhand shopping. Shopping became not about how much I spent but how much I could save. I chose quality over quantity, knowing that quality pieces would outlast the test of time. Secondhand shopping is all about the thrill of the hunt in finding those pieces that do just that at a fraction of the retail cost. This is where I began to dream of owning a little secondhand shop and helping others discover the joy in finding those quality pieces at rock-bottom prices.

When our time in the service was over, we decided to move up North to the White Mountains of New Hampshire. We bought a little starter homestead in Littleton, where we are currently raising chickens, pigs, and one crazy duck named Quackers, who thinks he’s more of a dog and spends his day playing with our Pyrenees-Labrador cross, Franconia, or Frankie for short.  (You can click here to follow the adventures of Frankie and Quakers on Instagram, @frankie_the_farmdog)

In the fall of 2019, a sweet friend of mine, Carrie, called me and explained that she had been praying about selling her consignment shop. Carrie told me I had come to her mind and she asked me if I would consider praying about buying Emma’s. Little did she know just a few weeks prior I had begun looking at different store fronts to start my own consignment shop. So I began praying about it and peace led me to step into buying Emma’s. This is where you can find me today, juggling the joy of meeting with customers, working with consignment clients, and organizing the logistics of running a small business all the while partnering with my husband to run a busy household.