Asrai Garden, a Wicker Park mainstay for flowers and more, to close March 31 after 25 years

Last week in a long-standing Wicker Park flower shop, business was blooming after a somewhat sudden announcement earlier in the day.

After nearly 25 years in business, three locations around the city, and thousands of custom bouquets and jewelry orders, Asrai Garden will close at the end of the month.

Patrons lined the store’s aisles scanning flower bins, jewelry cases and more. Amy Lehman, who has been coming to Asrai Garden as a customer since the shop’s beginning, said she came into the store last Friday afternoon to “get one last fantastic bouquet of flowers” and maybe a more long-lasting memento.

Lehman, 50, met owner Elizabeth Cronin when she moved to the neighborhood in the ’90s and watched Asrai Garden come to life. It became her go-to stop for Mother’s Day flowers because she trusted Cronin to put together “something great that my mother would love.”

“Elizabeth was really a trendsetter when it came to thinking about space, aesthetics, taste, how to represent those things through flowers and also through home decor and beautiful jewelry pieces,” Lehman said.

Cronin, 47, opened the Wicker Park store in December 1999 after working her way up in another local flower shop. Born and raised on the Northwest Side of Chicago, she said she took inspiration from places like the Field Museum.

“I wanted to be a bit different,” Cronin said. “I would go to the museum all the time, and I kind of wanted to have a place where you could have cool parts of nature like bones and butterflies and all those things, and then also wanting to have a store where I put all the things that I really loved and wanted access to.”

The shop held a party every year for its Dec. 1 anniversary. The 20th anniversary party was “pretty legendary,” Cronin said, with some 650 people showing up to celebrate at the West Loop location.

The flagship flower shop at 1935 W. North Ave. has been more than simply a place to pick up fancy florals since the start. Cronin has sourced from local artists and all over the world for jewelry, perfume, candles, beauty products, home decor and more along almost every square inch of the store. Asrai Garden has also done flowers for weddings and events all over Chicago.

Cronin opened a second location in the Ukrainian Village neighborhood in the early 2000s that operated for about five years. Another location in the West Loop closed in December after five years.

Cronin and her team had been working with a partner to close the West Loop and Wicker Park locations in favor of opening a bigger storefront this summer on Randolph Street with a cafe and wine bar, she said, but plans for the new location fell through shortly before they had planned to move.

A huge rent looming at the West Loop shop coupled with less foot traffic in the area following the 2022 closure of the Ace Hotel, where the shop was housed, prompted Cronin’s decision to break the lease at that location. Doing so “drained our company savings,” she said, which then led to the decision to close the original store earlier than planned and forgo any future expansion.

To stay open would mean “rolling the boulder up the hill,” Cronin said, especially considering the cost of goods and running a small business.

“Twenty-five years is an amazing amount of years to go out on, and now we’re going out on our own terms,” she said.

Cronin has kept busy in and out of the shop during her career. She was a judge on HBO Max’s florist competition show “Full Bloom,” having filmed two seasons in 2020 and 2021. She was Chicago native and fashion designer Virgil Abloh’s personal florist, she said, and still works closely with his wife for their home. Asrai Garden held a pop-up with Melody Ehsani, a designer, and the team also collaborated with her on custom merch for her husband, Flea, and his band, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, when they last played at Soldier Field.

Taylor Mauch, 39, who started with Asrai Garden as a sales associate about a decade ago and is now one of Cronin’s partners, said there’s been an “outpouring of love and sadness” since Friday’s announcement.

“The number of stories that I’ve heard over the last few days from people talking about the first time they ever came to the shop 25 years ago or people that discovered us more recently and how much it’s meant to them,” Mauch said. “So many people have been coming in saying they needed to make sure that they could be in this space once more before it closed.”

Cronin teared up as she recalled some of her own memories, like couples for whom she made prom corsages that are now married with a baby or friends who’ve gotten married at the shop, even someone who named their dog Asrai.

“These people have been in my life forever and are like family to us all,” she said. “It makes me feel good about what I built here and what all of us built together.”

Lehman, the longtime customer and friend, said even her son was involved with Asrai, as he used to make deliveries and do little errands for Cronin part time. Lehman said while the closing represents change not only for her but for the neighborhood, she understands everyone needs room to grow.

“People change, the world goes on, people make different decisions, they want a different lifestyle, they want to be in a different place, and those are all normal things that happen in people’s lives,” Lehman said. “I wish her the best.”

The shop is taking custom jewelry orders until Friday, and the last day of business will be March 31. Everything is also marked 20% off through Friday and then will move to 25% starting Saturday.

As for what’s next for Cronin, she said she and her wife bought a house in New Mexico last year and plan to move out there later this year. Cronin’s earlier plan had been to take a step back and make room for Mauch and the other co-owner, Adina Fried, to work more in the forefront.

Now, Cronin is figuring out her next steps as she prepares to leave Chicago for the first time.

“It’s a little scary, but I’m excited,” she said.