For a minute there in the middle of the pandemic, it was boom times at Flora Grubb Gardens in the Bayview. Crowds flooded in, seeking refuge in the leafy, open-air aisles of white-washed and terracotta pots, flowering succulents, and yucca.
“The customers started lining up in throngs,” said Flora Grubb, the co-owner. “Those lines started before we opened every morning and lasted all day, every day.”
Sales spiked throughout 2020 and 2021. Then spring 2022 rolled around.
Society was opening back up. Spring travel began superseding garden days, and in-office work tore people away from their carefully cultivated home jungles. “[Sales] fell off a cliff and never went back,” Grubb said. “It was like, woah, where did everybody go?”
For Grubb, the slump hasn’t ended. Foot traffic at the store, and the revenue that comes with it, is far lower than the pre-pandemic normal.
