Palmer Florist Persists Despite No Easter Church

JOLIET, IL —Easter Sunday is just days away and that means Palmer Florist, one of Joliet's longest running small family businesses, is usually delivering beautiful floral arrangements to several of Joliet's Roman Catholic churches. Not this year.

As has been the case for the past few weeks, Joliet's churches will remain empty on Easter Sunday because of the new coronavirus outbreak. Funeral homes have also had to dramatically scale back their services. Many small businesses throughout Joliet remain shut down temporarily.

Palmer Florist has been in Joliet since 1923. The third-generation small business has been at 1327 N. Raynor Ave. since 1964. Paul Palmer has run the business since 1978. He is like the unofficial mayor of Raynor Avenue.

When he stands in his parking lot, several motorists who approach the stop sign in front of his business yell hello or engage in small talk with him if there aren't any other cars coming.

People walking along Raynor Avenue stop to chat with him. People on bicycles wave and offer him good wishes.

Losing out on the floral arrangements for Easter Sunday church services is tough. On the other hand, other aspects of business are picking up.

More people are calling Palmer Florist or using their website to order flowers to send to a friend or a family member as a pick-me up during these challenging times.

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"Now, people are really starting to use our website," Palmer told Joliet Patch's Editor Wednesday. "I had been trying to build the Internet business for a while.

"People are sending flowers to people just as a nice thing to do, to brighten their day."

Palmer said his business has been able to stay open amid the coronavirus outbreak because "we supply flowers to funeral homes and their considered essential.

"We've had weddings canceled. In the long run, we'll miss graduations and proms. But we are still able to operate and provide flowers for the funeral parlors and the people need that because, the sad thing is, the people can't get to funerals now.

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"The silver lining is we're still able to give flowers."

Here's an interesting fact about Palmer Florist that many long-time customers may not know: about 80 percent of Palmer Florist's inventory comes from Ecuador, its owner said.

"They have 6-foot roses down there," he said.

Palmer Florist also gets a large supply of flowers from 30 miles away in Montgomery.

Right now, Easter lilies are the most popular selection.

Palmer said he has a nice selection of spring blooming plants available.

His website has one section titled, "Make Someone Smile" with approximately 50 different floral arrangements available.

Palmer Florist is doing curbside delivery on Raynor. It also delivers flowers. For the time being, people are prohibited from wandering around the store to peruse the inventory.

"We're just bringing it out to them curbside," he said.

His message to customers and the community at large: "Still be safe and still be smart. Everybody is hoping this thing gets over quickly," Palmer told Joliet Patch's Editor.

For more information, visit the website for Palmer Florist here. The business is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays-Fridays, 9 a.m. to noon Saturdays and closed Sundays.

In recent days, Palmer Florist was one of the small businesses to fill out Joliet Patch's simple online survey to let everyone know whether they are open and current hours of operations during the coronavirus outbreak. About 100 Joliet businesses have been added to Patch's list.

If you still want to add your small local business to Joliet Patch's growing list of open and closed businesses, you can do so here.

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