Marché De Fleur Westminster

With a population of just over 5,000, Montreal West is not as big or as well-known as its next-door neighbour, N.D.G. However, its Westminster Street is home to a number of smaller businesses, including a flower shop called Marché de Fleurs Westminster.

According to its owner, Alex Yoo, the creation of the flower shop was motivated by a change of scenery, as well as the fact that his wife’s family lives in Montreal and found a place to house his new business venture in Montreal West after a hardware store in the area had gone up for rent.

Despite some initial challenges during the first few years trying to build a clientele in the area and figuring out what the market was, Alex says business for the flower shop has been great. In fact, the flower shop wasn’t even supposed to be the only thing there, at least not initially. Alex says the flower shop came about because there wasn’t really an all-purpose flower shop around the area at the time.

“In the beginning, we were going to do half-depanneur, half-flower shop, but the depanneur didn’t pan out because we were trying to do more of a flower shop,“ he explains. "It took a few years for people to get to know us. But after three years, we had steady repeat clients. I got to know a lot of Montreal West residents, and now it’s been 11 years. Now hopefully [the] majority of Montreal West residents know our flower shop and now we’ve become one big family here.”