By Don Owen
NKyTribune reporter
Frank Kreutzer chuckled when asked about his impending retirement from a business his family has owned for more than 65 years in Newport.
“If I were 40, I’d try and build it back up,” he said, looking around the inside of Kreutzer & Dorl Florist, which is closing later this year, “but I’m 73. I’ve been in it for almost 50 years, working six days a week and 10-hour days. I’m just tired.”
Frank Kreutzer is retiring after nearly 50 years of service at Kreutzer & Dorl Florist in Newport. (Photo by Don Owen)
One of the landmark businesses in Newport, Kreutzer’s shop features many discounted prices on a variety of items. Flowers, though, have been the staple product of Kreutzer & Dorl Florist, which has provided its work to numerous weddings, parties, funerals, celebrations, homecomings and proms in the area the past 65 years.
Kreutzer said the business was thriving for decades at its York Street location until 10 years ago.
“It was doing well until 2008, and then the recession hit us hard,” he said. “It’s been a peak and valley since, and it’s been going down. Too much competition from the national sellers for flowers. We still do weddings, we still do parties, but it’s not as good as it used to be.”
Kreutzer’s parents started the business in 1953, and he eventually stepped in and became the owner. “I watched them, learned the business from them,” he said. “There was a lot of gambling going on in Newport in those days. A lot of people stopped in and became customers. Our business just kept growing.
“Now when the gambling operations left the city, we went through some valleys. But then it peaked again with different customers, different times.”
In 1971, Kreutzer said the business became associated with a logo that many customers expected to see in their floral arrangements — a ladybug.
“Since it was designed in 1971, we’ve put a ladybug pin in every arrangement,” he said, displaying a smallish pin with the trademark red-and-black ladybug. “Customers always expect to see our ladybug in the flowers.”
While the shop will close down in the near future, Kreutzer said no definitive date has been set. “We have a lot of products to sell at discounted prices, and we’re having half-off sales,” he said. “We haven’t decided yet on the final day. We’ll see what’s left after the sales. But I think it will be in the next month or two.”
Kreutzer & Dorl Florist will be open Saturday and from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m., with half-off sales on all merchandise, and Sunday from noon until 3 p.m. The shop will be open Monday through Friday next week with business hours of 10 a.m. until 4 p.m.
For more information, call (859) 261-1050.
The trademark ladybug logo of Kreutzer & Dorl Florist. (Photo by Don Owen)
