Flowers To Eat

The name alone tells you most of what you need to know about this North 56th Street shop. Flowers To Eat is a walk-in florist and gift shop that has built its identity around the overlap between two very different kinds of gifts, fresh cut flowers and edible treats, most famously its chocolate dipped strawberries. Customers who have stopped in describe the strawberries as generously coated in chocolate and other toppings, with presentation that comes across as genuinely special rather than an afterthought, which is exactly the kind of detail that turns a first time customer into a repeat one.

For anyone unfamiliar with the format, a shop like Flowers To Eat sits at the intersection of a traditional florist and a gift basket boutique. Someone can walk in looking for a straightforward bouquet for a birthday or anniversary and walk out instead with an arrangement paired with a box of dipped strawberries, or vice versa, a customer looking purely for a sweet treat might end up adding a small bunch of flowers once they see what is available. That flexibility is part of what makes the shop useful for the kind of last minute gift emergency that hits everyone eventually, the anniversary someone forgot until the morning of, the coworker’s retirement party that snuck up faster than expected.

Being a genuine walk-in operation matters here too. Plenty of florists these days operate primarily as order taking and delivery services, arranging flowers off site or through a wire service network with no real storefront experience to speak of. Flowers To Eat is the opposite, a brick and mortar shop on North 56th Street where a customer can walk in, look at what is fresh that day, and make a decision on the spot rather than choosing blind from a website photo. For Temple Terrace shoppers who want to see and smell the flowers before committing, or who want to taste test the confidence of a strawberry order in person, that in store experience is the whole point.

The shop’s categorization spans florist, gift basket, and gift shop territory, which reflects how it actually operates day to day rather than sticking to one narrow lane. That broad but focused range of offerings, flowers, dipped fruit, and gift baskets, gives Flowers To Eat a niche that few other Temple Terrace businesses occupy quite the same way.

Flowers To Eat keeps weekday hours from morning through late afternoon and a short Saturday morning shift, staying closed on Sundays, which is typical for a florist built around daytime gift buying and event related orders rather than evening retail traffic. For residents of Temple Terrace looking for something a little more memorable than a standard bouquet, especially for an occasion that calls for a bit of extra sweetness, this North 56th Street shop is well worth the stop, and the strawberries in particular have earned a loyal following among regulars in the area.