Kalin Falconer started Bloom & Co. in her basement in 2014, arranging flowers for events, and a shop was never part of her plan.
“I sort of swore I would never open a retail flower shop, so it’s kind of hilarious that I now have two,” she told The Lake Report.
Bloom & Co. opened its second location this fall at Clayfield Commons in the Village, an area Falconer said she has heard people call “uptown Niagara-on-the-Lake.” The development’s Clayfield hotel welcomed its first guests Sept. 18, but the parking situation has had neighbours worried since a 164-name petition opposed to the hotel began circulating in 2018.
Falconer’s first storefront, at the corner of Four Mile Creek and York roads in St. Davids, opened in 2017 as a home decor boutique. She once shared it with photographer Nataschia Wielink, who has since left to focus on photography.
The Clayfield location is much smaller and has no back room or workspace. Falconer said she left out a work area so the shop could hold as much stock as possible.
“Clayfield feels sort of like the little sister to our St. Davids location,” she said.
Steady sales from event work and loyal regulars gave her the confidence to expand, she said. Before the second shop opened, she estimated about 85 per cent of her customers were local.
“With the direction Clayfield is heading, with other retail and some food locations going in there, it felt like a community we wanted to be a part of,” she said.
Bloom & Co. now makes arrangements for hotel guests and the hotel’s restaurant. The shop also picks up customers from the Market at the Village, the farmers’ market that moved beside the hotel this year for its 20th season.
Falconer said she has heard no complaints about parking or traffic, apart from recent road construction nearby. Some customers have told her the new shop is easier to reach.
“I think there’s more parking challenges in St. Davids sometimes than there are here,” she said.
She expects more parking once crews finish the final phase of construction at the front of the development.
Developer John Hawley has said the Commons has 448 parking spaces, including spaces for the hotel.
Falconer did not need to hire anyone new to staff the second shop.
“I have such a spectacular group of very competent, intelligent women working with me, so I credit a lot of the ease in this transition to them,” she said.
The shop opened in time for the last two Sunday farmers’ markets of the season at the Commons. Falconer said foot traffic slowed noticeably on the first Sunday after the market ended.
As the year winds down and NOTL looks ahead to 2027, she hopes business picks up for the Icewine Festival in January and expects more tourists at Clayfield by spring.
