Macres Florist celebrates its 75th anniversary in Santa Ana

Sometime near the end of 2010, Macres Florist at 5th and Broadway will reach a major milestone:  the family-owned business will celebrate its 75th anniversary.

“I know they were open for Christmas in 1935,” said Mike Macres, third generation family member who runs the business with his wife Tricia.

While the actual anniversary date is in question, there is no doubt about the flower shops longevity.

It is the longest continuing operating family business in Santa Ana.

It almost wasn’t.

“My dad never wanted me to be in this business,” Macres said.  “He wanted me to be an accountant.”

But the younger Macres couldn’t envisage himself sitting at a desk in a cubicle entering numbers on a calculator.

Rather than an office job, he was attracted to the business started by his grandfather because it was dynamic and was always changing.

“You never know what is going to be going on,” he said.  One moment it might be creating arrangements for a wedding or a birth, the next a funeral.

“You get to see the whole gamut of human emotion,” the Santa Ana resident said.

Macres said the business has a colorful history. It was started by his grandfather, an immigrant from Greece who arrived in the United States alone at the age of 11 in 1898.

He sold flowers on the streets of New York City and eventually opened a shop   that prospered by supplying sprays for gangster funerals.  The family moved to Southern California in the 1930s and made floats for the Rose Parade, ran flower shows throughout the region and at one point owned a handful of flower shops all over Orange County.

“We were Conroy’s before there was a Conroy’s,” he said of the well recognized florist chain.

Today the tiny 900-square-foot shop has grown to 5,000 square feet by primarily catering to commercial accounts, companies that send flowers to customers and employees on special occasions.

“Before the recession we used to do a lot of parties as well,” Macres, 64, said.

In his more than four decades in the flower business, he said the business has changed dramatically.

“Everything used be grown in California, Santa Barbara to San Diego,” he said. Today most of the flowers come from South America, primarily Ecuador and Columbia.

Macres Florist is open Monday to Friday 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.