Flowers By Lucas

My girlfriend is a very talented floral designer, and I don’t give her flowers as often as I should. After all, she works with flowers every day and does a better job of designing than 99% of the other florists out there. If she wants flowers, it is very easy for her to make an arrangement for herself, right?
But I do give her flowers 5 or 6 times a year. Even though the arrangements aren’t as nice as she would make herself and she can certainly do them a lot less expensively, it is the thought that counts, right?
So we’re in Atlanta for a few days, and as we’re riding up the escalator at the hotel, my girfriend makes a comment about a vase of roses sitting on the concierge’s desk. That, of course, reminds me that it has been waaaay too long since I’ve given her flowers.
So while she’s spending the day buying stuff at the Gift Mart, I take a walk over to Flowers by Lucas to see how much they’d charge or a single rose with some baby’s breath (I don’t need a vase — I’ve got an empty plastic water bottle that will do just fine).
The lady working at Flowers by Lucas tells me it will be $ 7, which I think is reasonable. She asks me which color I’d prefer, picks through the tub of roses and finds one that is just starting to open, grabs a bunch of greens and baby’s breath, cuts everything to length, makes a very nice arrangement of it all, wraps it in clear cellophane, and ties a ribbon around it.
The lady isn’t the most outgoing person in the world. There’s no friendly chit-​chat as we go through the process, and she doesn’t really seem too interested in talking with me, but she did a really nice job with my single rose purchase and provided a lot more value than I expected. I know she did a good job, because as I walked back to the hotel and went up to our room, all the ladies I passed saw the single rose offset by the greens and surrounded by the baby’s breath got that «Awwww…I wish someone would do that for me» look on their faces.
And, when my girlfriend got to the room and saw the arrangement (after I’d removed it from the cellophane, put it into the plastic water bottle, and moved the ribbon to the bottle) she sent a photo of the arrangement to her co-​workers.
Bottom line: While the designer didn’t have a friendly, outgoing personality, she did a great job at a very reasonable price. The price, quick service, and quality of work were certainly 5 star material. I like people I buy from to smile, be friendly, and act like they’re really glad I decided to spend my money with them. That didn’t happen during my purchase, so they get rated at 4 stars.

I stumbled upon Flowers by Lucas while taking a walk around my hotel, and I remembered that my boss had instructed that I buy some orchids for our booth at the Bronners Bros. tradeshow.
My exchange with the shop owner wasn’t very pleasant, but it wasn’t unpleasant as I kept pushing (since I didn’t know of any other flower shops nearby!). Like Alison B’s experience, the shop owner was not very friendly until the moment that I asked if she was Korean. When she answered yes, I asked if there were any Korean restaurants in the area that she’d recommend. Connecting with people over food almost always work like a charm for me!
Ultimately, I ended up getting lilies because she said lilies would look better in a clear cube vase. I asked if she delivered, she said yes. And she delivered the flower arrangement to my hotel promptly before 6pm that very night (as I needed it the very next morning before her shop opens!). My total was around $ 58. As I’m not in the business of buying flowers on a regular basis, I’m not sure if that was expensive or inexpensive.
I might try to find a different vendor the next time around. We’ll see.

If there was a possibility to give negative stars, I would. I called Flowers by Lucas today to order flowers for my family who lives in Atlanta. The lady on the phone was hands down, the rudest person I have ever spoken to in my entire life– and I am not exaggerating.
«Hello, do you deliver in Atlanta?»
«Ugh, Atlanta is a big place. Depends.»
«Downtown Atlanta»
«(sigh) what do u want»
«I’d like some flowers sent to _​_​_​. I’m not familiar with your flower shop, do you have any specials?»
«No. What do you want»
«Um, what types of flower do you have?»
«We are a flower shop! We have lillys, tulips, gerber daisys, What do you want?»
«How much are tulips?»
«$ 40 for 10.»
«How about roses?»
«Lady, I cannot help you.» (She hangs up.)
I was frankly shocked that she was somehow so upset that I was trying to buy flowers from her that I called back (t took her about 10 minutes to answer the phone) & asked her why she hung up on me. She proceeded to SCREAM at me in the phone, «LISTEN YOU ASK ME TOO MANY QUESTIONS I AM VERY BUSY. YOU DON“T EVEN KNOW WHAT YOU WANT. YOU MAKING ME VERY MAD.» I asked to speak to the owner & she said she’s the only one there. Then I asked if she was the owner & she said, «yeah sure». When I told her I didn’t understand why she was being so rude when I was just trying to buy flowers from her shop, she said I was wasting her time. Then, at the end I told her how terrible thi experiene was & that I will report her extreme & uncalled-​for rudeness to the BBB she said, «I dont care. I shutting the business down.» That last line confuses me– maybe she’s going out of business & having a bad day — but I just don’t understand why someone would be so horrible to a customer on the phone like that.
Moral of the story– Do not even think about going to Flowers by Lucas.