30 years later, Prescott's Florist continues to grow, and thrive

LACONIA — From weddings to funerals, Prescott’s Florist at the Laconia Passenger Station downtown has been helping people in the Lakes Region create meaningful celebrations for three decades.

This year the store marks its 30th anniversary under the ownership of Patty Woods. She bought the shop on Main Street in 1995, and two years later, moved into the current location at the train station. The store currently offers local deliveries, gifts, and will service any event requiring flowers. Patty’s daughter Jennifer Woods Maloney said a number of things have made the business successful.

“We always try to have the largest selection they can find in the Lakes Region,” she said. “I think it's the friendliness and the knowledge of our staff, customer service is our No. 1 goal with every interaction we have.”

They also attribute their success to their customers, many of whom have supported them through the years.

“We’ve got a lot of friendships out of our loyal customers,” Patty said.

While Prescott’s Florists has been around since at least the '70s, founded by Ralph Prescott in the original location on North Main Street, it had traded hands a couple of times before Patty purchased it in the '90s.

Patty comes from a horticultural background. She worked in the greenhouse business and also managed a landscaping company. This helped her in her pursuit to run her own floral shop, where she immediately found success. When the store moved to the railroad station, it was much larger, and intimidated her, at first. But with an ambitious attitude, she filled the space.

“This opportunity came up to buy Prescott’s 30 years ago. It was located downtown at 662 Main Street. And so, she purchased it. It was very small, and she stayed down there on Main Street for two years. And then this location became available, and she moved it, and she pretty much tripled her square footage,” Jennifer said. “That was really scary at first, but exciting in the end.”

Jennifer helped Patty in the floral shop when she was younger, before going off to college to study marketing. She anticipated she would move on to something else. But soon after graduating, Jennifer came back, and put her degree to use promoting the shop and managing the store. It became a family business.

“I joined her in 2003, after I graduated college. At the time the shop was growing, she had moved up into this space and needed some more staff and help. And she thought it was a good opportunity for me to use my marketing degree for that,” Jennifer said. “I joined her full time then.”

Floral design manager Jessica Farmer has been working at the shop since she was was hired 28 years ago. She said the owners treat her like family, and have supported her through many important milestones.

“I've grown up with them. You know, I had a family, got married, still stayed,” she said. “We've done everything, all the important stuff.”

Farmer saw the growth of the business over the years. She said the business started off small, but has since exploded.

“Everything was smaller. Flower arrangements were less, there was not as much,” she said. “Now, we've expanded our knowledge about flowers. We try to do higher-end things that maybe we wouldn't have if we hadn't. We all kind of grow together.”

The floral shop now includes flowers from California, the Netherlands, Ecuador and Canada. They look at local growers, too.

With 30 years under their belts, the team attributes their success to flexibility in navigating hardship. They survived through the 2008 housing crash, the COVID-19 financial crash, and continue to thrive.

“We just have to adjust and rethink our business each time we get hit with some kind of adversity, but we just keep moving forward,” Jennifer said. “We love what we do.”

Downtown Laconia has changed in the past 30 years. While Prescott’s Florist has persisted, the team has seen many businesses come and go.

“There was the restaurant, the Black Cat Cafe, the railroad station was [still] here. The jewelers was here, but they just retired. And the chamber of commerce was where the Service Credit Union was. I know there was a Mexican restaurant where Burrito Me was,” Jennifer said.

Warren Clement, a commercial Realtor with RE/MAX, has lived in the city since 1973, and owned the Sundial Shop downtown, which closed in 2010 after 37 years in business. He also used to deliver flowers for Ralph Prescott in the '70s. He has seen Laconia’s downtown change in the last half century, and he said in the '90s, there were more retail stores. With the success of Amazon, and the opening of Tanger Outlets in Tilton, many local stores have closed. But he credits Prescott’s Florist for their continued success.

“Prescott’s has been a long-standing, solid retailer in downtown Laconia for a long time, because they do it right,” he said.

Clement said downtown had shrunk in foot traffic over the years, but recently, with the addition of new businesses like Fit Focus and Wayfarer Coffee Roasters, business is coming back alive.

For the future, Prescott’s Florist is looking to source more gifts from New England, including Boston, Portsmouth and Bedford. Jennifer believes increasing their offerings will make them competitive and bring more people to the Lakes Region. Despite the product expansion, the team doesn't plan to leave their current location.

“We love it here, in Laconia, and we love what we do,” Jennifer said. “It's not really a job to come to work every day. It's fun, exciting and creative.”