http://floridagardensflorist.com
Florida Gardens Florist has been a part of Tampa since 1973, when my father, Manuel Gonzalez, first opened a tiny shop on old Buffalo Ave. and eventually moving the shop to Armenia Ave. He was a Gallego, a Spaniard from the northwest region of Spain, who, at 18 years of age, moved to Havana, Cuba to work in his father's and uncle's flower shop, La Dalia. When a certain militaristic, bearded fellow overtook the island, Manuel, and about ten others, acquired a small fishing boat and luckily drifted to the good ol' U. S. of A.
Manuel was a hard worker and had many jobs. Whether it was cleaning barnacles off of the hulls of boats at the Tampa Shipyard or working at Acme Plating, which supplied those unforgiving seats at Tampa Stadium. (Remember when stadiums weren't named after corporations?) So, if you saw the Rowdies, Bandits, Mutiny, Creamsicle Bucs or any number of concerts from Led Zeppelin to Pink Floyd to the Monsters of Rock, you sat on those aluminum benches that my father helped to create.
Things were going well for Manuel, met his beautiful wife, started a family and had a decent job. But, Manuel wanted more for himself and his family. So, Manuel took a gigantic risk, left his job and decided to open a flower shop using the skills he developed back at La Dalia and became his own boss.
He took over Buzzetti Floral Co. (I still have a few long time customers who still know my shop by that name!) and created Florida Gardens & Buzzetti Floral Co. It was tough at first, as I’m sure all new business owners know. There were days he just sat staring at the phone waiting for it to ring. Eventually, Manuel made connections, whether it was through dances at the Centro Asturiano or at the Jai-Alai fronton (when are they going to bring that back?). Manuel’s little shop started to become established. Good thing too, because he soon had another mouth to feed...me.
Fast forward to 1998…
That new mouth to feed, Alex, became interested in the family business. You know how they say the Coach is always hardest on his kid? Well, that was true with me. He built a great reputation and wasn’t just going to hand the keys over to me just like that, I had to earn it. I started at the bottom. Learning how to make bows, clean flowers and make bud vase arrangements. After years of absorbing knowledge from my father, as well as others who worked at the shop, (Thanks, Dora and Gilda!), I eventually took over the shop officially in 2007.
I helped to modernize the shop (first thing to go were the rotary phones. Yes, my father was that old school), shorten the name to just Florida Gardens Florist and adapt to the new way business was being done. The days of customers walking in and paying with cash evolved into customers going online and paying with plastic. In February of 2015, I took the shop to that next step, becoming solely an online retail floral outlet. Still providing the same great service and reputation my father had built and instilled in me. Florida Gardens Florist has been providing flowers to generations of Tampa customers. Parents, their children and now their children’s children still shop with Florida Gardens Florist. It’s unbelievable.
Let’s start a new tradition and a new generation of Florida Gardens Florist customers and come be part of a Tampa legacy.
