Longtime floral shop Church Street Flowers announced this morning that it will be closing its original location at 212 Church St. at the end of July. “We’re sad to leave Church Street Flowers’ first home,” said the shop’s co-owner, Brianna Foehr, “but after much deliberation, we know that this is a necessary step in allowing us to have continued success in an ever-changing city.” 

Foehr and Rachel Friesen have co-owned Church Street Flowers, an award-winning full-service floral boutique, for eight years; however, the location has been a flower shop for over 25 years. The owners sited changes in the floral industry’s customer base as one of the reasons that they decided to relocate their headquarters to their 950 Battery St. location. “The decision to move is due in part to the rapidly rising costs of conducting business at their current location,” the two said in a press release. According to Church Street Flowers, the restructuring will allow them “to teach workshops, classes, and host other special events that we haven’t had the time or space to do in our current situation.”

When asked whether the florists had the chance to renew their lease at the Church St. location, Friesen wasn’t able to comment. “The Castro has been a wonderful neighborhood for us for so long,” Friesen said. “This corner of the city has definitely changed over the past couple of years. A lot of our longtime loyal customers have moved out of the city due to the same financial reasons that everyone is facing, which has been sad to see.”

Church Street Flowers will continue to have a presence in the Castro, having recently launched a small retail flower and plant boutique in the newly opened Myriad marketplace, right around the corner from its original location. “We've never had the space at our Church Street store to house a bunch of plants,” said Friesen, “so it seemed like a natural expansion for our business as well as a nice addition to the neighborhood. Now, due to the current situation with us moving out of the Church Street location, we will slowly start to carry more and more flowers at this new [Myriad] location as well.”

“We still want to stay in the area to provide flowers and plants for all of our current customers and anyone new to the area,” wrote the owners. “We have heavy hearts knowing that we won’t be in our original shop anymore, but we are very excited about branching out and bringing even more of our creativity to life moving forward.”