{"id":28592,"date":"2021-01-28T14:57:03","date_gmt":"2021-01-28T19:57:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=28592"},"modified":"2021-02-04T13:39:56","modified_gmt":"2021-02-04T18:39:56","slug":"it-has-been-a-lifelong-experience-carusos-closes-doors-after-more-than-a-century","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/it-has-been-a-lifelong-experience-carusos-closes-doors-after-more-than-a-century\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cIt has been a lifelong experience\u201d \u2013 Caruso\u2019s closes doors after more than a century"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Unable to welcome customers into the store one last time, it was a quiet end to an eventful era for Caruso & Company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Caruso & Company, which was founded by Anthony Caruso as a wholesale produce business in 1913, closed their doors for the final time on Friday, January 22.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Initially slated to close effective January 15, fourth generation owner Mike Caruso extended the goodbye for another week as customers, many of whom were second, third or fourth generations themselves, came by for a final bouquet or flowers or that last minute home d\u00e9cor touch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt has been hectic and surprisingly busy for a pandemic,\u201d Mr. Caruso told The Auroran on January 15 just after extending their run. \u201cAdd into that trying to clean and finish up. We\u2019re selling our inventory, but now we\u2019re selling our fixtures. A lot of odd stuff went on Facebook Marketplace, things you\u2019re not necessarily going to sell in the store, and it has been hectic for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Manager Sue Wilbur said they sold their last flower, once the mainstay of the business, on January 14.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe had to finish that early because we had nothing left,\u201d said Ms. Wilbur, noting that in the home stretch people were not only knocking on their doors and tapping on their windows to say farewell, but writing nice letters as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if there is anything we didn\u2019t realize about what our business meant to the community,\u201d says Mike, picking up the thread, \u201cbut we didn\u2019t know the degree. We knew we were part of people\u2019s lives \u2013 and, no doubt, we were sending them things, everything from a new baby, to birthdays, to funerals and weddings, get well, and everything in between. You know you had an effect on people\u2019s lives and they have been saying they remember coming in as kids, we did their mom\u2019s wedding and now we were doing theirs. It has been a lifetime experience.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The same can be said for generations of the Caruso family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After Anthony first opened their Yonge Street doors nearly 108 years ago to distribute wholesale products to local stores and surrounding communities, operations expanded in the 1930s to include Mary\u2019s Fruit Store which was run by his daughters, Mary and Rose. Son Frank joined his dad in the wholesale enterprise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Expansion was on the horizon once again by the end of the 1950s and the start of a new decade brought further expansion with the opening of Mary\u2019s Flower Shop, which was operated by Frank\u2019s wife, Phyllis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Frank and Phyllis\u2019 son, Mike, joined the family business in 1997 after a career as a contractor and carpenter. Focus then shifted towards the flower business and, with the help of Ms. Wilbur, expanded towards home d\u00e9cor, giftware, greeting cards, and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Making the decision to retire from the business, Mr. Caruso stresses, was not due to any downturn in business stemming from COVID-19. Rather, it had been on the horizon for the last few years. Nevertheless, winding down a business after more than a century was nothing short of an emotional experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Caruso\u2019s, says Ms. Wilbur, meant something different to each customer, whether they were buying flowers, coming in to get an apple as a kid, or finding the perfect ornament for their Christmas tree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCustomers now feel like it is their place, which is what we wanted. And this is how we feel, too,\u201d she says. \u201cIt was like they were guests or family coming into our home here and that is how we felt. Now we know that is how they felt too, and that\u2019s why we are crying.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong>
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter<\/em><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Unable to welcome customers into the store one last time, it was a quiet end to an eventful era for Caruso & Company. Caruso & Company, which was founded by Anthony Caruso as a wholesale produce business in 1913, closed their doors for the final time on Friday, January 22. Initially slated to close effective […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":28578,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/2021-01-28-01.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-7ra","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-04 06:14:48","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28592\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}