Why open a flower shop right next to four others?
Avenue Rd.’s row of stores draws regulars from as far as Barrie
Every day Ken Teryan wakes up to smell the roses — both the real roses he sells in his Avenue Rd. shop, and the metaphorical roses reminding him that he owns one of no fewer than five flower shops competing for business on the same block.
Kay & Young’s, Yang’s, Ken’s, Jong Young and Grower’s stand side-by-side on Avenue Rd. south of Davenport Rd.
Unlike the restaurants of Chinatown or the Danforth, there is no apparent logic to why they’ve congregated there.
But the flower shops of “Av and Dav” have come to characterize the neighbourhood. The novelty draws regular customers from as far as Barrie, and even occasional tourists eager to check out Toronto’s “flower district.”
“I think for Toronto, it’s great,” said Teryan, who owns Ken’s Flowers.
“I would love to have cheese stores, five in a row. Or bakeries selling lots of croissants — that would be wonderful. For sure they would be the nicest crois- sants around,” he said, smiling broadly at the pastry-filled reverie.
Teryan sees the tough competition and proximity of the flower shops as an advantage to customers — and that keeps the shop owners on their toes.
“It’s giving the signal to all of us to wake up early every morning, never sell anything dead, always keep the flower store so clean and nice and fresh,” he said. Neglect to do these things and customers will simply go next door.
Grace Young, owner of Kay & Young’s, the newest florist on the strip, agreed that the surrounding flower shops were a draw to setting up shop there.
It seems to be working. On Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day, the lines to get into any one of the Av and Dav flower shops get so long that the police show up to monitor crowds, Teryan said.
It’s not unheard-of for small businesses in proximity to become each other’s most serious competitors, and sometimes the contest gets tense. Last year, a cocktail supply shop owner sued her direct neighbour, claiming he was trying to pass off his shop for her’s.
Those who have lived near Av and Dav a long time might not remember exactly how or why the strip blossomed into flower row — but they’re not complaining.
Diane Loeb, who has lived in the area for 38 years, recalls watching as produce shops and kitchen supply stores were replaced by florists over time.
“Just the two minutes you take walking south through that block you’re hit with the most amazing scents and colours,” she said. “It lifts your spirits.
“It’s amazing to me that five separate locations can keep going just a few yards from one another.”
She sometimes worries that high- rise condo developers will change the landscape of the neighbourhood, and take the quaint flower shops with them.
Loeb is a dedicated customer at Jong Young (“I always get a ‘hello’ when I go into my flower shop!”) and believes that each of the shops must thrive by carving out their own unique client base.
Nevertheless, Milena Eglite, who owns Grower’s, described the competition between shop owners as “fierce.”
With the alternatives right outside her door, Eglite said it can be espe- cially difficult to contemplate minor price increases when things such as hydro become more expensive.
But she said the shops work hard to build their own unique base of customers. She serves hotels and shops in the nearby upscale Yorkville neighbourhood. Teryan, meanwhile, focuses on wedding orders.
Rebecca Reuber, a strategic management professor at the University of Toronto, says “it’s probably not an easy existence” for the owners when similar businesses line up side-byside.
“You can’t be complacent because you have a competitor right beside you,” she said.
But businesses may also benefit from their neighbours’ high reputations, Reuber said, which can help to turn areas of the city into “destinations” for certain products or services.
“It’s probably in your interest that the competitor is quite good,” she said.
With all five flower shops boasting reviews by customers who claim theirs is the best one, the flower shops at Av and Dav seem to be doing well by that measure.