Megan Moore was feeling burned out.
With a few months left in her contract with WKRC Local 12, she kept thinking: What's next.
“In the news, we covered a lot of heartache and we interviewed a lot of people on the worst days of their lives,” Moore said. “It could be really heavy."
So, she began to think of new opportunities.
There was photography, a hobby she had long enjoyed. But Moore didn’t want to turn her passion into full-time work and risk losing the spark.
An idea kept coming back to her ever since a friend took a trip to Nashville and shared what she found there: A flower truck.
In 2018, Moore took the leap of faith, purchased a 1965 Ford Econoline truck from a seller in Michigan, and began Cincinnati’s first flower truck business, Daisy Jane’s Flower Truck.
"Being able to be a part of life’s more lighthearted moments has really cheered me up, and that’s what I needed when I started," she said.
Since acquiring the first truck, Moore and her team have grown. A second truck was added to the fleet, and in December 2020, her first brick-and-mortar store Daisy Jane’s Flower Bar opened in Walnut Hills.
Moving from the news business to the flower business was unfamiliar to Moore prior to starting Daisy Jane's, but one she said she was happy to take on.
"I view flowers as beautiful materials that nature gives us to work with," Moore said. "I wasn't intimidated going into this without a floral background. If you have basic design abilities and an eye for it, at the end of the day you'll figure it out.
"I was willing to be a student, to be a beginner."
Giving the 'opportunity to love people spontaneously'
Opening the Flower Bar came with the opportunity to further grow Daisy Jane's offerings to customers: most notably, vases and non-flower related accessories (think greeting cards, candles, jewelry and other knickknacks of that variety) around the shop as well as private and public classes on flower arranging.
Moore said the Walnut Hills storefront, located at 772 E. McMillan St., is in the perfect up-and-coming neighborhood.
Sam Meece, the lead designer and flower bar manager at Daisy Jane’s, said she likes to encourage customers to be the artist.
“To be able to invoke passion in others in a field that we are so passionate about…it sparks that light in them,” Meece said. “It’s a rewarding thing for us, and that’s what helps us stand out. We’re not just providing a service and a product for people, we’re trying to get their hands on it and educate them. It’s about making flowers more attainable.”
Daisy Jane's now operates the two flower trucks, which can be seen at weddings, events and festivals all across Greater Cincinnati.
The trucks sell individual flowers priced per stem and gives customers the chance to build their own bouquets, a business model Moore said is unique from other florists in the area.
The Instagram-friendly trucks are easy to spot — red and white with the logo emblazoned on the side and the beds filled with flowers, which often sell out at events and festivals like City Flea and Oakley Fancy Flea.
“The trucks give people an opportunity to love people spontaneously, and that’s what I love about all of it,” Moore said.
The arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 brought challenges, but it also allowed the business to expand their truck deliveries even further.
"Throughout the pandemic, I think flowers were one thing that people were really drawn to," Moore said. "People would come to the truck and tell us they planned their day or their week around it. It’s so good for your mental health, and that’s why what we do is so much bigger than just provide a service of flowers."
"I love that we're really close to the city, but it's also very residential and we know all of our neighbors," Moore said. "I love the diversity here and I love the creativity. There's a lot of energy, and it's an exciting place to be right now."
The arrangement classes, Moore said, are where Daisy Jane’s really gets an opportunity to shine. The store offers both public classes anyone can sign up for online and private small group classes, held every Sunday. Class options at various price points include flower arranging, dried wreaths and fresh or dried flower crowns.
“It’s important for people to feel like they can come in and be artists and explore what that feels like,” Moore said. “That’s what we try to encourage — people getting an opportunity just to make.
"It’s almost therapeutic. You can come in and get lost building an arrangement. We love the confidence it gives people, to know they put something together and can go home and say, ‘I made this.’”
