Ora la Casa de Las Flores

Ora is my mother's name, and it's where all of this started. I began making candles, soaps, and body butters by hand, and it grew into something bigger than I expected. A flower shop and café in Sunnyside, Queens, and now a second home in Chelsea.

I'm Nicaraguan, and I build arrangements the way I like flowers best: loose, a little wild, local when I can. We do everyday bouquets, weddings, weekly subscriptions, and the kind of big installations people remember. The café came out of a love for coffee the way I grew up drinking it, dark, rich, and unhurried.

The handmade goods are still here too. They're where this whole thing began, and I'm not letting them go.