Kahului Florist staffers take a short pause in cleaning the Dairy Road business last week to pose for a photo. In front, from left, are: Randi Visitacion, Kathy Tokumoto and Natalie Nishimura. Back row, from left: Renette Yamanoha, Shel Cockett, Lyndi DeCoite, Sasa Ewaliko and Margaret Emoto. Former owner Nishimura said she has worked at the shop for more than 50 years and planned to stay on with the new ownership, which took over Tuesday. — The Maui News / MATTHEW THAYER photo

Natalie Nishimura has been in the flower business long enough to know her customers by the milestones in their lives.

She knows when a birthday is coming up, when an anniversary is around the corner, even the sad occasions marking the loss of a loved one.

“Those things you going always remember because of all the years that they’ve ordered,” Nishimura said Wednesday.

It’s that daily connection to the Maui community that Nishimura will miss the most after handing over the reins of Kahului Florist to new ownership this week.

The business, run by Nishimura’s family for more than 60 years, has long been a local staple for special occasion flower arrangements.

New ownership has taken over Kahului Florist along Dairy Road. — The Maui News / MATTHEW THAYER photo

“That’s why it was so hard because throughout all the years we made so much friends,” Nishimura said. “So it was bittersweet to let go the shop, because you don’t know how soon you going see so-and-so down the road. You always think, pretty soon they’re going to stop in because it’s their anniversary. … Regardless of what the occasion was, we would see our regular customers all the time.”

Maui Garden Designs LLC took over Kahului Florist on Tuesday, with Emily Bowden as owner and Tara Nakahashi as the studio manager.

Bowden, who owns Fernhouse Flowers in Haiku, said she was looking for a retail storefront and heard Kahului Florist was selling.

She said they plan to remodel the shop with new paint, new shelving and new displays, as well as a flower mural on the outside of the building. They also want to add new gift baskets and other Hawaii-made products, and hope to launch online shopping options in about a week.

The goal, Bowden said Wednesday, is to “really just update the business but keep the name and the spirit of Kahului Florist.”

One thing that won’t change is the familiar faces customers are used to seeing — all but one of the workers is staying on with the new ownership, including Nishimura, who’s transitioning to a part-time role as “employee, not boss.”

Nishimura said the time was right for a change in ownership.

“We were getting too old already,” she said. “Everybody in here except for one person was collecting Social Security.”

The original flower shop was started by two sisters — “Mrs. Fujimoto and Mrs. Tamura,” Nishimura recalls. Their business was set up behind the meat market run by Nishimura’s parents at the Kahului Shopping Center.

Back then, all the businesses were like family. The shopping center was bustling with local establishments like Tasaka Guri Guri, Noda Market, Ah Fook’s, Roland’s Shoes and two barber shops — one run by Ethel Nagata and another by the Orikasa family, Nishimura remembers.

“Everybody was like family, cause everybody was mom and pop. There was no big, big stores,” she said.

When Mrs. Fujimoto retired, Nishimura’s mom, Doris, partnered up with Mrs. Tamura to run the flower shop. And when Mrs. Tamura retired, Doris Nishimura bought her out and owned the whole shop starting in May 1962, Natalie Nishimura said. Her mother kept working at the flower shop until she was 80 years old. She died five years ago at age 91.

“She had to be talked into retiring. It wasn’t a choice. We kept telling her, time for go play now,” Natalie Nishimura said.

“After she retired, she still stopped in every day to see how things was going. It was hard to let go, especially all of a sudden. Even for me, as much as the shop is sold, I said, can I work part time? Cause I don’t know what to do with myself.”

Kahului Florist has weathered its share of changes over the years, including a move to Maui Mall and later Dairy Road and a shift in how it sources its flowers. Slowly, the local growers that the business used to rely on have retired and closed up shop, with no one from the next generation to take over. Kahului Florist started turning more to Mainland growers, but facing the same challenges of retiring farmers and devastating drought, especially in California, the business has now started to bring in many flowers from South America.

Despite the closure of many mom-and-pop brick-and-mortars over the years, Kahului Florist has endured, which Nishimura credits to the loyal community.

“It is the public that kept us alive and kept us going, because when the pandemic hit, the amount of businesses that started closing, it got so scary,” Nishimura said. “But we were blessed to have the customers that we had. They kept coming back to us. For us we call them friends.”

It’s why Kahului Florist goes the extra mile for orders. The business sets aside two weeks out of the year to close up shop and let all the employees take vacation at once. But if a friend asks, they’ll still take an order for a wedding or a funeral and make sure it gets delivered even when the shop’s doors are closed.

“That’s one thing we won’t tell them is no,” Nishimura said. “As long as we’re on the island, we will take care of what we can.”

Bowden, the new owner, wants to keep that spirit of customer service going virtually and in person. Once the online shopping launches, she hopes to see more people ordering online, “but still have the majority come in, so we can kind of still cater to those who love to come in and have the customer service, but also have those can’t make it in, they can have that feeling online.” She says the shop currently has eight employees.

Flowers are a family affair for Bowden, too. She’s the granddaughter of an Idaho farmer who loved zinnias, a variety that Bowden now grows on her Haiku farm in addition to dahlias, snapdragons and other flowers that are hard to ship to Maui. She said she’s proud to be a woman-owned business and tries to stick with locally grown flowers as much as she can.

Moving forward, Bowden said Fernhouse will continue to offer higher-end wedding and event flowers, while Kahului Florist will provide retail items, gift packages, funeral arrangements and other local requests that the business has come to be known for.

* Managing Editor Colleen Uechi can be reached at cuechi@mauinews.com.

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