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Photos by FRANK PINC/Staff Photographer

Melisa Jimenez of Sweet Petal, 537 S. Dearborn, with a heliconia.

It might seem strange to go into the floral business during a time of economic recession. But that’s just what Melisa Jimenez did last spring with Sweet Petal, her shop in Printers Row. The store debuted May 1, 2008, and has managed to stay afloat despite opening right at the beginning of one of the worst recessions in 70 years.

“Since I’ve never done this before, I don’t know what a good year or a bad year looks like,” she said. “But I know I can still pay my rent so I guess that means so far, so good.”

Jimenez was inspired to open the shop not long after being laid off from her job as an interior designer for Steelcase, Inc. in February 2008. She was walking down Dearborn Street in Printers Row when she passed a vacant storefront that had been a flower shop in the past — a place Jimenez worked part-time during her college days. It was there that she had first experienced the world of floral design and sales.

She loved the position. “I had no experience and wasn’t even much of a flower person but it was the happiest job ever,” Jimenez said.

After seeing the shop empty she started thinking of returning to the world of bouquets and flowers, and decided to make the leap.

“I knew, right off the bat, that with starting a new business there is a risk,” she said. “I didn’t expect that I was going to open and there would be a crowd of people running to get flowers, and I knew that I probably wouldn’t even be making a profit for a couple of years, but that’s the risk you take.”

It helps that Jimenez didn’t start Sweet Petal with any debt. Unlike many small business owners, she did not take out any loans but instead used her savings and money from her Steelcase, Inc. severance package to finance the business.

Jimenez also kept start-up costs low with a little help from her friends and family. Her father helped her get the shop ready and built her two counters. She painted, decorated and designed Sweet Petal’s interiors herself.

Originally from Miami, Jimenez, 29, came from a family of entrepreneurs, which she credits with giving her the confidence to open her own store. Her parents, immigrants from Ecuador and Peru, owned an optometry shop in Miami. As a child, Jimenez often spent weekends in the shop with her parents, pitching in where she could.

“I used to take all the cheaper frames and set them up on a little table and would go outside on the sidewalk and try to sell them,” she remembered. “Then my mother let me convert a little room in the store into my own little shop.”

Like her older brother who became an optometrist, Jimenez planned to go into the family business and enrolled in optometry school in Michigan. But eventually she realized it wasn’t the path for her and transferred to the Harrington College of Design in Chicago, where she got her degree in interior design.

“At first my parents were a little bit nervous and wanted me to be in a more secure field, but I had to go for what I wanted to do,” she said. “Now they respect that and I think I’ve proven to them that I’m a hard worker.”

Jimenez acknowledged that flowers are a luxury — an extra expense penny conscious consumers are avoiding in the current economic climate. She has tried to be flexible by working within her customer’s budgets and stocking the store with a selection of $5 and $10 bouquets, which she said have been a hit with customers.

“But, you know, everybody has birthdays, most people get married eventually and at some point, unfortunately, there’s going to be a funeral,” she said. “So there are still always going to be occasions in people’s lives when flowers are wanted.”

And it’s those moments in people’s lives that Jimenez said she hopes to enhance through the natural beauty of flowers.

“I just met with a bride and I think I was as excited as she was,” Jimenez said. “It’s nice to be a part of such an important moment in someone’s life.”

Save for one part-time clerk and a marketing intern, Sweet Petal, with Jimenez at the helm, is basically a one-woman operation. Which means many long hours. But the decision to open a shop, even amid economic uncertainty, was the right one.

“I think I found something I really like,” she said. “I am just naturally a people person and I really enjoy the fact that flowers can make people happy. In the end, that makes me happy.”

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