PUHI — Sandy Adachi stood behind the work table in her new flower shop Friday, plucking blossoms from their stems with deft fingers.
Birds of paradise peeked from two arrangements on the counter, and a tub of purple anthuriums posed against a green backdrop in the sink.
Plastic containers of colorful lei lined the cooler at the front of San’s Flowers and Leis, the flower shop that Adachi opened Aug. 1 in the Puhi Plaza Village across from Kaua‘i Community College.
The new shop stands at the location once inhabited by The People’s Market, a store that drew the attention of both tourists and locals with its inexpensive lei, fresh fruits and smoothies.
Adachi credits the Masakis, the family that founded People’s Market, with laying the groundwork for her current venture.
“I do appreciate them establishing themselves,” she said. “If it wasn’t for them and their reputation, I wouldn’t be here today.”
Adachi said she still offers the inexpensive lei that made her predecessors famous. She sews her own lei, and she also buys the ornate strands from five or six retirees, independent craftspeople who bring their work to sell at her shop.
“I don’t know what I’m going to get until they walk through the door,” she said.
The shop also offers cut flowers and flower arrangements. Lei are the bread and butter of the business, she said, but her arrangements, priced at $25 and up, have been gaining attention, too.
“I always put one up to let people know I sell them, and usually I sell it,” she said.
While she talked, Adachi dropped blossoms into a plastic tub.
“I’ve always enjoyed flowers,” she said. “I would watch people sew, and that was always my interest.”
She learned to make lei when she was growing up on a Kapa‘a dairy farm. When her father passed away, her mother planted a tropical flower garden on about two acres where the family’s vegetable garden had been.
Her sister kept that garden going until about two months ago, she said, and now she and her family are working to bring it back to life.
Adachi worked at a flower shop for several years after college, but then took a job with the county, where she worked with Section 8 clients. She continued to make flower arrangements for colleagues.
“That satisfied me,” she said.
She opened the shop one day after she left her county post. She relies on word-of-mouth advertising to get the word out about her arrangements, though she also sent samples to area businesses.
A lot of her customers come to her shop because they remember talking story with her predecessors, she said.
“People still come in here looking for smoothies,” she said. People’s Market offered the drinks, she said.
For now San’s will stick to selling lei, cut flowers and arrangements, Adachi said.
“I’ve got to do things one step at a time,” she said.
