He opened my dream shop

It was a crisp autumn morning on a Saturday morning. The warm November sun dyed the leaves yellow and slanted the shadows of the trees on the residential buildings on both sides of the street. In New York, restaurants are still banned from eating indoors, and the stalls of the surrounding restaurants have been placed on the side of the street, and they are already full of people eating breakfast. Without thinking much about such a lazy morning, I went straight to PlantShed.

PlantShed is a small shop selling green plants and coffee. I just moved to this neighborhood more than two years ago, and accidentally broke into this store, which has only been open for a few months, and was struck instantly: half of the store sells delicate bouquets and exquisite potted plants, and the other half sells Lavender latte, a special coffee, occasionally sells picture albums of planters and exquisite pots and jars - isn't this the dream shop of female Wenqing! I quickly grabbed the lady at the counter and asked. It's a pity that she is not the boss, so she directly gave the business card to the store. It turned out that they had a three-storey green plant main store after a few street corners, specializing in plant supply, not coffee.

Soon the concept of green plant coffee became the word of mouth in the Upper West District. A year later, PlantShed opened a second branch of green plant coffee in SOHO in Xiacheng District. This year, I went to Eaglewood, New Jersey next door, to open a third one. It is said that the owner's cousin is supplying flowers and plants there. Affected by the epidemic, several stores were temporarily closed from April to August. But around September, as the restaurant industry in New York gradually recovered, they opened again, and the coffee tables and chairs were placed outside.

There are many customers in and out of the store. Because of fear of infection, the clerk controls the flow of people. I was politely asked to go out after buying coffee. During that short stay, I was alert to hear an important news: PlantShed is about to open a new store in this neighborhood, continuing the romantic combination of green plants and coffee.

Originally, many of my favorite shops closed this year, and I was sweating for Plantshed, but now it seems that I am overthinking it. If it was said that stepping into this store two years ago just fulfilled my daydreams, now I am curious: what makes this kind of store that sells petty emotions survive the epidemic and continue to expand?

PlantShed's current CEO, Eric Mourkakos, is the third-generation head of the family business. His maternal grandfather's generation had been running a flower shop on New York's Upper West Side in the 1950s. By the late 1970s, Eric's father and uncle had immigrated to New York from Greece. His father married the florist's daughter, and he and his brother bought the florist business from his father-in-law. Since then, the signboard of 209 West 96th Street has become PlantShed, which has not changed for more than 30 years. In the early 2000s, the Greek brothers had saved enough money to buy the building they had rented for nearly two decades. The building was built in 1900 and is three stories high. They took care of the roof of the top floor into a greenhouse, which is more conducive to storing plants imported from the warm tropics.

In addition to his father's shop, the seven aunts and eight aunts in the family are also engaged in flower shop-related business. Eric has been helping in the shop since he was a child, the little prince of the proper flower shop - but Eric did not want to inherit the family business at the beginning. He went to Boston University to study economics, returned to New York to work in finance, and at the same time used his family's sponsorship to open a restaurant in New Jersey. Do not want to encounter the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis, the financial industry is sluggish, and the family's flower shop business is also affected, and it almost goes bankrupt.

"When I was in my twenties, I always didn't want to follow the old ways of my elders, I wanted to make my own way. If I go back to the store to sell flowers after reading, it's a matter of course. But when I really want to close the business, I suddenly feel reluctant. .” Eric recalled the decision to go home and take responsibility very calmly. He was fat, and he didn't pay attention to his hairstyle and clothes. When he smiled, the apple muscles on his face were full and ruddy. If you don't think about his status as "the little prince of herbal coffee", he may look more like "the farmer's son".

I asked him how the restaurant he opened in the early years is now, and he said that it has already sold out. At that time, I wanted to prove myself when I opened a restaurant. After taking over the family store in 2009, I didn't have time to take care of the restaurant. At that time, I was thinking about how the flower shop would transform and how to survive. Around 2010, the hotline to order flowers has become outdated. Eric turned his business to the Internet: e-commerce, Internet celebrities, and social media. These things that the elders in the family don’t understand, Eric has a smooth operation. In this way, PlantShed began to enter the fashion circle. After decorating some shows, other corporate customers came to the door. However, he went around and entered the catering industry again. Since he opened the first green plant cafe in 2017, the idea of opening a restaurant before has come back. "The flower and grass business is actually very similar to the catering business. They are both perishable commodities. It is particularly important to control the logistics time."

The profit of cafes and flower retailing only accounts for about 30% of PlantShed's, and their main source of profit is to provide flower services for corporate brands, such as fashion shows, wedding banquets, flower supply in office restaurants, and so on. In recent years, with the popularity of indoor green plants, they have also begun to provide consulting services for balcony design to more and more high-end customers. They organize workshops and bring in floral designers and trendsetters to teach their clients their experience.

The green plant coffee shop profit is thin, but it is important to PlantShed's brand image. The media likes to report, and hipsters like to check in, so Eric continues to open branch by branch. Recently, he has just sold another store near the main store, which is the new branch I heard from the clerk in the store before. The building of the new store is very new. It is on the first floor of a high-rise apartment. It is spacious and is currently being renovated.

"The epidemic has indeed shut down many shops, but luckily it has also brought low rents. I'm so lucky to be able to rent this shop." The old building that the Eric family bought around 2000 has become obsolete. He has been listed for sale three times in the two years from 2018 to 2019. After several price adjustments and two sales strategies, it seems that he still cannot attract developers. "It's good to own a house, and it's easier to get a loan." Eric said this, and immediately added, "The older generation may just think it's safe to buy a house, but if you ask me now, I wouldn't buy it. It was built in 1900. The building of the year is really too old.”

I asked two other foreigners who have appeared in the media as PlantShed partners, operations director Jay Casiano and creative director Casey Godlove, and Eric immediately showed a proud look. Jay is Amigo (meaning "good brother" in Spanish, probably Mexican) who worked hard with his parents in his early years, and the founder of the flower ordering hotline. The transformation of PlantShed from a neighborhood florist to a supplier covering New York and New Jersey was a big part of Amigo's contribution. Now he has retired to Florida. Casey is the designer working alongside Eric. As early as 2011, when PlantShed started the celebration banquet business, he often took orders for related decoration design. In 2017, when Eric decided to fully transform PlantShed into a lifestyle concept brand store, he made Casey his creative director.

"Casey is more photogenic than me, and the fashion media likes him, so let him show up more. His Instagram updates are more frequent than me, and the pictures are better." Eric himself has stopped running public social accounts since 2012. Casey is more like the little prince of herbal coffee imagined by women Wenqing, with black-rimmed glasses and a straight shirt. On social media, he will post his thoughts on flower design, write essays about his birth and growth, and showcase his antique furniture.

Let him talk about the impact of the epidemic on business. He said, "Ups and downs are always the norm, and it's nothing. Of course, this epidemic has had an impact on our turnover, but we still opened two new branches this year, didn't we? When I first took over in 2008 and 2009, it was still much better. My family and relatives helped each other, and our decades-old customers are still looking forward to us, and we have good partners.”