A Family Tradition: Berkeley Floral Shop Celebrates 45 Years

BERKELEY, NJ — Stacey Cofka's parents opened three flower shops on the Jersey Shore. Since they sold two shops and retired in 2004, A Blossom Shop Florist on Route 9 has remained a family operation.

A Blossom Shop Florist opened in 1975 and has been celebrating its 45th anniversary throughout 2020. Cofka credits the local customers for sustaining the business.

"It’s a central location for covering a lot of the shore area, and the people are great," she told Patch. "Everyone’s pretty much down to earth in this area. A lot of our customers, they’re just fabulous. They come in, they’re like family."

Cofka worked in marketing for 12 years with Atlantic City casinos. Sixteen years ago, her parents — Paul and Cathy Mulhern — retired. They had sold their other shops in Sea Girt and Howell.

Their daughter took the opportunity to buy the Bayville shop from her parents.

"It just got overwhelming with the politics," she said of working for casinos. "I just said, ‘Why am I doing this for everybody else when I can do it myself and apply a lot of the marketing that I learned through the casinos into my own business?’"

Since then, A Blossom Shop Florist has earned several accolades from floral organizations and the Asbury Park Press.

They will celebrate their 45th anniversary in several ways. A Blossom Shop Florist kicked off the celebration with a contest: guess the cost of the banner in their Jan. 10 post. The closest guesser by Jan. 24 will win one dozen roses arranged in a vase.

The florist will also hold a summer event offering 45-cent roses, as they have on past anniversaries. A Blossom Shop Florist will also once again run the "Pedal it Forward" program. Anyone who donates a nonperishable food item during that time will receive a free flower bouquet. A local food bank will receive the donation.

Forty-five years in, Cofka still values the relationships the shop has built with customers.

"We recognize a lot of our customers," she said. "We have some customers that come in every week for flowers. But it’s really about the relationships that have been built year after year."

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