Brattle Square Florist in Harvard Square, which has been open for 107 years, had planned to close on January 31st, 2022. However, the shop will be remaining open. The Register Forum interviewed Stephen Zedros, an employee of Brattle Square Florist, to learn more about the story.

Register Forum (RF): If you’re comfortable sharing, is there a particular reason the store was going to close?

Stephen Zedros (SZ): My family owned [the store] for 98 years, and we sold it to a gentleman Randy, who owned it for nine years. He was exhausted and wanted to retire, and he was just going to evacuate the space. He said, ‘I can’t do any more,’ and at that point I went up to my pursuer and tried to talk to them and get the name back and keep the place alive, and that did happen within about a week … The other landlords in the square came up to me and said, ‘Come to my space, come to my space,’ and they were very charitable in giving us a space so close to this store. And the landlord here was very nice, the one here at 31 Brattle [Street]. He’s done everything we’ve asked for. We’ve been here for 107 years now. It’s hard to not at least try to continue a family business that’s been around for a long time. I was happy to do it and happy to get it done.

RF: How did you feel about the store closing, and how do you feel now that it’s staying open?

SZ: Being a legacy store, you have many generations involved, and some of the generations are retired. It was just a positive feeling to get it back because everyone was happy along the whole way, plus all the loyal customers and supporters. There’s generations of people we’ve served here and they were so happy to get it back and I was just as happy, obviously, to get it back. It was just enjoyable because you get to meet a lot of people in this area and you meet all different types of walks of life. The students and the colleges around here are fantastic, and the people and faculty are great too. Everyone in this area has a story.

RF: What is something you would like people to know about Brattle Square Florist, or something you would like Cambridge residents to take away from this?

SZ: It makes me really happy to still be here because it keeps the mom-and-pop stores in Harvard Square, which are kind of going away. The square is more corporate now, and this store going up toward Toscano’s and Burdick and being right in the middle of them at 52 Brattle Street is going to be like a little mom-and-pop block. A lot of customers come by and say that. And the support is amazing. I couldn’t see the store going down as it does well … and it’s profitable. I couldn’t see it shutting down without at least talking to Randy, the owner, and trying to work something out.

This piece also appears in our April 2022 print edition