SYRACUSE , NY (NCC News) — For 21 years, Dino Centra’s Westcott Florist has been serving arrangements to Syracuse, and this upcoming weekend marks one of the biggest weeks of all.
Ahead of Mother’s Day, the shop receives dozens of orders from around the greater Syracuse area. Some flower shipments come from Canada and others come from Ecuador and Colombia via a broker in Miami. But shipping in the flowers as is only half the battle.
“It’s like a McDonald’s commercial,” Centra said. “What you see on TV is not what it looks like in person.”
So, Centra’s business has prided itself in going the extra step in shop to guarantee that finished look. Flowers are brought to the back area of the store where they’re pruned, trimmed and reorganized as requested by the customer. Roses that arrived open end up a little more closed in order to last longer, Centra said. The effort is not lost on customers either.
“I mean they were just beautiful,” Syracuse local Lisa Daly Lehmann said. “They understand what we wanted. Very healthy, they last a long time and, you know, it’s nice to feel like you know a business.”
Elsewhere, concerns have arisen regarding potential “flower shortages” and a subsequent price spike, making honoring mom a more expensive operation than years past. Centra mitigated those worries as well, sharing that his flowers have remained the same price throughout the pandemic.
As for managing the orders, Westcott lets customers order in-store, call ahead or even order online on their website. With an array of ways to order such a variety of flowers (ABOVE), Westcott Florist stays true to it’s motto of a wide selection “to make your next occasion memorable.” This one just happens to be the “Super Bowl” of them all, Lehmann said.
