Riverside Greenhouses in Kalamazoo closing its doors (with video)
John Banner, front, gathers items in the showroom of Riverside Greenhouses on Riverview Drive to prepare for a final sale. Banner and his brother, Steve, behind the counter, are closing the business that was started by their grandparents 97 years ago.
KALAMAZOO — When Gail Kasdorf’s grandmother began buying flowers from Louise Schallhorn at Riverside Greenhouses, she had no way of knowing she was starting a tradition that would continue for three generations.
“It goes back to my grandmother knowing Mrs. Schallhorn, who owned the business, using her for (purchasing) flowers, and then my mother using the flower shop and her siblings,” Kasdorf said.
By the time Kasdorf and her husband, Thomas, were married in 1966, Schallhorn had relinquished ownership to her son, William, daughter, Elizabeth, and Elizabeth’s husband, Edward Banner, but there was no question who would do the flower arrangements for the wedding.
“They used very fresh flowers and were very reliable; you could always count on them doing the best they could for you,” Kasdorf said. “I was never disappointed.”
So when third-generation owners John and Steve Banner notified Kasdorf and other regular customers recently that they were closing the doors of the floral shop at 1523 Riverview Drive that their grandmother and her husband, Herman, had opened nearly 97 years earlier, Kasdorf couldn’t help but get sentimental.
“I called when I received the card and thanked them for the wonderful years we worked together,” she said. “It was very sad.”
Falling sales
It was also sad for the Banner brothers, who had owned the flower shop since the 1970s.
“Last week was an emotional week,” John Banner said of the days leading up to the closing of the flower shop Dec. 30.
In addition to themselves, the Banners had four part-time employees at Riverside.
But the Banners said a downturn in sales made it impossible to continue the business that had been in their family since 1915.
In the beginning, they grew all their own flowers, but over the years they have been imported from all over, and when South America got into cut-flower production, availability increased tremendously and prices dropped.
“Nobody grows (their own) cut flowers anymore,” John Banner said.
Fewer or shorter funeral visitations and an increasing number of outpatient surgeries have reduced the call for flower arrangements to be sent to funeral homes and hospitals as much as the tradition of having arrangements adorn the family dinner table all but disappeared years ago, the Banners said.
“Culturally, we’re not a flower society anymore; we’re more informal,” John Banner said. “Flowers have dropped way down on the list of things we have to spend money on.”
Building the business
Riverside Greenhousesâ owners Herman and Louise Schallhorn with their children, William, Elizabeth and Herman.
That wasn’t the case for Herman Schallhorn, a “classically trained horticulturist” who immigrated to the United States from Germany and was working as a gardener in Chicago when he met his future wife, Louise, who also had emigrated from Germany and had settled in Kalamazoo, where her sister lived.
They bought Riverside Greenhouses, located on nearly 3 acres bordering the Kalamazoo River. They lived in a house on the premises and expanded the number of greenhouses on site.
When Herman died in 1927, Louise Schallhorn continued the business, eventually turning it over to their son, William, and the Banners.
After William Schallhorn’s death, the Banners maintained the business with help from their five sons, Robert, John, Don, David and Steve, all of whom worked there as children and teenagers.
“We worked here from the time we were little,” John said. “We could climb under the benches (in the greenhouses) and pull weeds.”
“Being a family-owned business, your life was centered around the family,” John said. “When we were 7 or 8 years old, we would go on deliveries with the drivers, and run up to the houses to deliver the flowers.”
Sometimes the deliverymen would stop at a restaurant and buy them a hamburger, which was always a special treat, he said.
As adults, Robert and David went into other fields, but John, Don and Steve remained at Riverside, taking it over from their parents, who remained fixtures there almost until Edward’s death in 2000 and Elizabeth’s in 2003.
In 1967, Riverside underwent a major renovation, adding the store, workroom, greenhouse and garage that remained in use until it closed.
In the 1980s, business was brisk and Riverside expanded for a time into three satellite flower shops on the Kalamazoo Mall, Parkview Avenue and Stadium Drive.
“That was before a lot of the grocery stores and big box stores got into the cut-flower business,” John said.
As business slowed, the Banners closed the satellite shops and Don pursued other avenues of work, leaving Riverside to John and Steve.
A new chapter
As they sift through memories at the flower shop and greenhouse and prepare to disburse the remaining plants and equipment, the Banners haven’t decided on their own futures.
John, 62, said he is considering semi-retirement, which will be a big adjustment after working six days a week. “After that many years in retail, it might be a nice time for a change,” he said.
“I’m not really sure what I want to do,” said Steve, 58. “I’m keeping my options open.”
But one thing’s for sure, he said: He will miss the camaraderie with customers, employees and suppliers.
Kasdorf and other regulars also will miss that closeness.
“It’s nice to have a family business that cares,” she said.
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This entry was posted on Sunday, January 8th, 2012 at 6:08 am and is filed under Flowers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.