After 74 years of service in downtown, the Bedford Floral Shoppe at 691 Broadway Ave. closed it doors for the last time earlier this year. Perhaps fittingly, owner Robert Hotchkiss Jr. announced his retirement and the closing of the shop at the end of February after the business’ final Valentine’s Day season.
Hotchkiss had been planning his retirement even before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. He said that at age 70, it was a good time to get out of the business so he could spend more time with his family. He and his wife Jae have three children, four grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
Hotchkiss said he is grateful for the hundreds of customers that have been faithful to the Bedford Floral Shoppe and helped it become a successful business over the years. However, he said the way many people have been buying flowers these days makes it difficult for a small business to survive. He said that the availability of large online vendors makes people sometimes forget about their local options.
Internet purchases would be decades away — in fact, televisions had barely even come onto the market — when Robert’s father, Robert Hotchkiss Sr., launched the Bedford Flower Shoppe in December of 1945. The elder Hotchkiss had returned from World War II, and soon after, opened the shop with a partner at its first location at 711 Broadway Ave. The younger Hotchkiss said growing flowers has always been a part of his family’s makeup, and that his father had experience working at a greenhouse when he was young.
Around the time he started the business, the elder Hotchkiss married Marion Peck and began a family which included Robert Jr., who was born in 1950, and his older brother Doug. Hotchkiss said that while growing up, the brothers would help out at the shop, but he said his parents would never push them to be involved. They were allowed to make the decision themselves of whether they wanted to participate.
In 1962 the family purchased the already established ‘Natalie’s Florist’ in Northfield. They remodeled the building and changed the name to Northfield Florist, thus creating a second place for customers to go to get their floral arrangements.
After years of seeing how much his father enjoyed the business, and how the elder Hotchkiss was able to help others commemorate important events in their lives, the younger Hotchkiss decided shortly after high school, and some time in college, to devote himself to the flower business as a full-time career.
“I learned apprentice-style,” he said.
It was around that time, in 1971, that the family decided to purchase the building at 691 Broadway. At one point in its history, the building was used as a post office, then as a bakery and also an insurance agency. Before they moved in, Hotchkiss said they enlarged the building by adding on to the back, up to 30 or 40 feet. They opened for business at the new place in 1972.
Hotchkiss began to take on more responsibility during the 1970s as his father’s health started to decline. Also at that time, Hotchkiss’ brother Doug was in charge of running the store in Northfield. Hotchkiss’ father passed away at the age of 62 in 1979.
Hotchkiss said that running any retail business can be complicated, and the flower business offers its own challenges and rewards, as well.
One of the challenges can be timing, and sometimes that depends on the flowers themselves. Hotchkiss said they would buy their stock mostly from wholesalers in Cleveland, but it could take one to three days in the shop for the flowers to open their blooms so they could be used. Once the flowers were ready, the design aspect of floral business could begin.
“I enjoyed the designing (aspect) a lot,” Hotchkiss said. He added that they had some templates to work from, but that sometimes he would just create on the spot. He said it was very meaningful to him to help people express their feelings during significant times in their lives, whether it was a wedding ceremony or a funeral.
“Flowers are a funny thing,” Hotchkiss said. “They last a week or so, but the memory of what you send lives on.”
He said people have come back to him after a funeral and expressed how much the flower sprays helped to bring a sense of peace, and assisted them in getting through that difficult time of death.
During the 1970s, Hotchkiss said they had as many as 12 workers at the shop, mostly part-time, to help with the demand for flowers. He said one of the employees handled all of the wedding designs, while the rest would tackle the daily orders.
Since timing is so important with flowers, he said it wasn’t unusual during holidays to stay in the store until 2 a.m. just to turn around and come back within a few hours in order to fill requests. Needless to say, Hotchkiss spent lots of time at the shop.
Despite all the hours, Hotchkiss said he was still able to enjoy watching his children grow up since the business had already been established, and he had so much help at the store. Still, he said he had to make days off and vacations a priority — and even close the store at times — or he could have been at the shop all the time.
Hotchkiss said since the flower shop took up such a large part of his life, he never really had the opportunity for a hobby, so retirement might allow him to broaden his horizons a bit in the area.
He said of retirement. “It’s a bittersweet type of thing. I love my business. I loved my work.” He said it is hard for him not to have the opportunity to go and be of help to people during different occasions, “but I’m with my family, and that’s what I am supposed to be doing.”
Editor’s Note: Northfield Florist remains in business at 9387 Olde 8 Rd in Northfield, Ohio. Here is a link to the website: https://northfieldflorist.net/
