Lily Chen started with a bucket of peonies and a borrowed folding table.

It was a Saturday morning at the NVC Farmers' Market in 2019. Lily had quit her corporate marketing job three days before, bought fifty stems of peonies from a grower upstate, and set up next to the bread vendor.

She sold out in two hours.

By the following spring, Lily had moved into the narrow storefront at 38 Main Street — the one with the bay window that catches the afternoon light. She stripped the wallpaper, sanded the floors, and painted the walls the color of clotted cream. Then she filled the cooler with the best stems she could source and opened the door.

Five years later, Lily & Bloom is the neighborhood florist for New Vibe City. We do weddings and standing orders for restaurants, but at heart we're still about the walk-in customer who needs something beautiful — and the window display that makes them stop on the sidewalk.