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S.F. FLORAL ROOTS RUN DEEP: HOOGASIAN BROTHERS DELIVER EXPERTISE, TRADITION AMID INDUSTRY'S BLEAK PATCH
by Meredith May
The San Francisco Chronicle (California)
July 12, 2012 Thursday
FINAL Edition
Larry Hoogasian's family has been in the San Francisco flower business
for 90 years. He's smelled many, many flowers, but his favorite will
always be the lowly carnation.
"They've gotten a bad rap," said Larry, 59, who now runs Hoogasian
Flowers, with his 62-year-old brother Harold, from a South of Market
warehouse with the city's largest refrigerator 14,000 cubic feet.
"Commercial carnations are crossbred for longevity, so they have
lost their cinnamon-y smell," Larry said. "I remember Dad used to
come home smelling like that."
At a time when grocery stores are undercutting bouquet prices and
online flower brokering has taken away half of the traditional floral
business, the Hoogasians have made deep cuts to stay alive, but are
determined to keep San Francisco tied to its floral past.
A half century ago, Larry and Harold were making corsages at their
father's flower stand on Union Square, selling them for 50 cents to
tourists expecting a European, cosmopolitan experience in the big city,
which included wearing corsages to walk about town.
It was a tradition started by their grandfather, who emigrated from
Armenia in the 1920s to peddle end-of-the-day florist leftovers as
people were leaving their downtown offices. It was common then to see
dozens of Armenian, Italian and Jewish immigrant flower sellers with
baskets of flowers along Market, Geary and Powell streets.
By the time Harold and Larry were born in the 1950s, their father
had a permanent flower stand on Union Square in front of Gump's
department store.
"The tourists were coming from places where corsages cost $10, so
they were delighted," Harold said.
Their father sold flowers six days a week, in a starched white
shirt and a tie. It was the only flower stand among dozens in the
city to wrap flowers in red instead of green paper and to offer a
public telephone, courtesy of the Gump's switchboard. Eventually
the Hoogasians opened a flower shop in an old Del Monte cannery on
Fisherman's Wharf.
When the business moved to the Naval Exchange at the Treasure Island
Navy base in the late 1960s, Harold worked with his parents in the
afternoons after his genetics classes at UC Berkeley.
Harold graduated in 1974, and while taking a year off to contemplate
graduate school, fell in love with a funeral director's daughter
who came in to order flowers. He decided to stay in San Francisco,
stay with flowers, and the lady.
Larry graduated three years later from Cal with a degree in
architecture, which came in handy when he was asked to suspend
enormous wreaths of 500 roses at Berkeley's Greek Theatre when the
Grateful Dead played. His window displays won national FTD awards,
and his handiwork led to Hoogasian Flowers being asked to do the
arrangements for Pope John Paul II's visit in 1987, Nelson Mandela's
in 1990 and rock promoter Bill Graham's memorial in 1991.
Today, their biggest customer is singer Carlos Santana, who sends
out white roses five to 10 times a week. He prefers the Ecuadoran
"white chocolate" roses, with buds as large as baseballs, that go
for $100 a dozen.
The Hoogasians need customers like Santana to withstand tough times
in the flower business. Since 2000, business has dropped 60 percent,
and they've had to let 13 of their 19 employees go. They make 150
deliveries a week, down from 350. Two years ago, they closed their
retail store on Lombard Street and their flower stand on Post Street.
But they are holding onto the lease and the street-stand permit,
hoping to bring them back when things turn around.
The brothers are involved with a group called Florists for Change,
which is trying to reduce the commission charged to florists by online
"order gatherers" who act as middlemen between buyers and sellers.
"These online behemoths like 1-800-Flowers are crushing family-run
shops like ours," Harold said. "A $100 flower order has to be filled
if it comes to us directly or through an online order gatherer who
takes $20 out first."
Some florists make up the loss by arranging just $80 worth of flowers,
but the Hoogasian brothers refuse to cheat. To them, flowers are more
than just plants.
"We are in the business of delivering sentiments, and flowers are
the vehicles," Harold said.
One of Larry's favorite jobs is helping buyers come up with just the
right words to put on the delivery card. When a customer wanted to send
flowers to a music teacher who had a book published, Larry was ready.
"How about, 'Your book is music to our ears'?" he suggested.
It was perfect.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
by Meredith May
The San Francisco Chronicle (California)
July 12, 2012 Thursday
FINAL Edition
Larry Hoogasian's family has been in the San Francisco flower business
for 90 years. He's smelled many, many flowers, but his favorite will
always be the lowly carnation.
"They've gotten a bad rap," said Larry, 59, who now runs Hoogasian
Flowers, with his 62-year-old brother Harold, from a South of Market
warehouse with the city's largest refrigerator 14,000 cubic feet.
"Commercial carnations are crossbred for longevity, so they have
lost their cinnamon-y smell," Larry said. "I remember Dad used to
come home smelling like that."
At a time when grocery stores are undercutting bouquet prices and
online flower brokering has taken away half of the traditional floral
business, the Hoogasians have made deep cuts to stay alive, but are
determined to keep San Francisco tied to its floral past.
A half century ago, Larry and Harold were making corsages at their
father's flower stand on Union Square, selling them for 50 cents to
tourists expecting a European, cosmopolitan experience in the big city,
which included wearing corsages to walk about town.
It was a tradition started by their grandfather, who emigrated from
Armenia in the 1920s to peddle end-of-the-day florist leftovers as
people were leaving their downtown offices. It was common then to see
dozens of Armenian, Italian and Jewish immigrant flower sellers with
baskets of flowers along Market, Geary and Powell streets.
By the time Harold and Larry were born in the 1950s, their father
had a permanent flower stand on Union Square in front of Gump's
department store.
"The tourists were coming from places where corsages cost $10, so
they were delighted," Harold said.
Their father sold flowers six days a week, in a starched white
shirt and a tie. It was the only flower stand among dozens in the
city to wrap flowers in red instead of green paper and to offer a
public telephone, courtesy of the Gump's switchboard. Eventually
the Hoogasians opened a flower shop in an old Del Monte cannery on
Fisherman's Wharf.
When the business moved to the Naval Exchange at the Treasure Island
Navy base in the late 1960s, Harold worked with his parents in the
afternoons after his genetics classes at UC Berkeley.
Harold graduated in 1974, and while taking a year off to contemplate
graduate school, fell in love with a funeral director's daughter
who came in to order flowers. He decided to stay in San Francisco,
stay with flowers, and the lady.
Larry graduated three years later from Cal with a degree in
architecture, which came in handy when he was asked to suspend
enormous wreaths of 500 roses at Berkeley's Greek Theatre when the
Grateful Dead played. His window displays won national FTD awards,
and his handiwork led to Hoogasian Flowers being asked to do the
arrangements for Pope John Paul II's visit in 1987, Nelson Mandela's
in 1990 and rock promoter Bill Graham's memorial in 1991.
Today, their biggest customer is singer Carlos Santana, who sends
out white roses five to 10 times a week. He prefers the Ecuadoran
"white chocolate" roses, with buds as large as baseballs, that go
for $100 a dozen.
The Hoogasians need customers like Santana to withstand tough times
in the flower business. Since 2000, business has dropped 60 percent,
and they've had to let 13 of their 19 employees go. They make 150
deliveries a week, down from 350. Two years ago, they closed their
retail store on Lombard Street and their flower stand on Post Street.
But they are holding onto the lease and the street-stand permit,
hoping to bring them back when things turn around.
The brothers are involved with a group called Florists for Change,
which is trying to reduce the commission charged to florists by online
"order gatherers" who act as middlemen between buyers and sellers.
"These online behemoths like 1-800-Flowers are crushing family-run
shops like ours," Harold said. "A $100 flower order has to be filled
if it comes to us directly or through an online order gatherer who
takes $20 out first."
Some florists make up the loss by arranging just $80 worth of flowers,
but the Hoogasian brothers refuse to cheat. To them, flowers are more
than just plants.
"We are in the business of delivering sentiments, and flowers are
the vehicles," Harold said.
One of Larry's favorite jobs is helping buyers come up with just the
right words to put on the delivery card. When a customer wanted to send
flowers to a music teacher who had a book published, Larry was ready.
"How about, 'Your book is music to our ears'?" he suggested.
It was perfect.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress