WHO IS BILLIE’S FLOWER HOUSE: THE PEOPLE BEHIND THE BUSINESSApril 10, 2021News
Billie’s Flower House, Owner – Janine Reynolds
By Stacy Thomas
What do cranial sacral therapy and floristry have in common? Nothing, you say? Guess again.
Before Janine Reynolds and her husband Francis became owners of long-time local fixture Billie’s House, Janine was a massage and cranial-sacral therapist here in Squamish, and before that Australia. You might be wondering what these two seemingly different fields have in common, but it’s actually quite a lot.
Janine may not necessarily still be healing people through her hands, but she continues to get that sense of healing through providing a beautiful, soothing space for her customers and being there for all the emotive moments of their lives.
“Billie’s is all about community and creating a safe sanctuary for people to come to,” she says. “A lot of people come in the shop, and they just come to take a breath of nice beautiful air and just be here and have a conversation, or just to look at pretty things. They don’t necessarily buy anything; they just want a little bit of a safe space. So that’s really, really important to us, to provide that.”
“It’s not necessarily about selling something to everybody who walks in the door, but just providing a nice place in the community for people to come.”
Community. As a centrepiece of downtown Squamish since 1973, Billie’s House is one of the longest-running businesses here, and that’s one of the reasons Janine and Francis decided to purchase the shop in 2018 – that presence as an institution and the long-standing connection to the community.
When the couple took over, they knew next to nothing about running a floral shop, let alone how the floral industry works, but Janine credits her years of experience working in restaurants, from dishwashing at 14 to managing by the time she left the industry, for her seamless transition into the fast-paced floral retail world. They, too, have similarities, she says; both revolve around selling perishable products, and both involve the creative process of perfecting “recipes” – recipes that are customized for each customer’s needs, or honed down to minute details and repeated with precision, like for weddings.
She admits that working with plants was a whole new world and a challenging learning process.
“It’s been huge, but when you throw yourself into it, it’s been fun, and it’s never-ending, even the people who have worked here for years and years, it’s never-ending for them too, that’s what’s fun about the job, one day is never the same as the next.”
Janine doesn’t get much of a chance to slow down that fast pace, with three daughters (18,17 and 4) at home. Before they took over Billie’s, Janine was working at her massage therapy practice and Francis was working remotely, commuting regularly to the UK. It wasn’t working. Now that they’ve been working together for over three years, she in the shop, Francis taking care of all the back-end stuff and deliveries (“He waves at everybody”) she says she wouldn’t want to go back.
The way things are going, it’s not like she’ll have to.
When the pandemic started, they had a brief period of closure and then went deliveries-only for a while, and that’s when they took the opportunity to renovate. Then they reopened the shop, and ever since then, the business has been brisk.
“The floral industry has picked up a lot since covid hit, everybody’s been very grateful and loving towards their people who they can’t see right now,” Janine says. “But weddings have definitely gone down dramatically, and the size of weddings – a lot of wedding clientele are from overseas, Americans come to get married at Whistler, so those have really dwindled, but the shop itself is adapting to what we need to do.”
For Janine, what they need to do is continue to be there for the community that the shop has been serving for almost five decades; “Just creating a safe, nice place for people to be is really important, especially in this day and age, that’s really important to me.”
Billie’s Flower House, Owner – Janine Reynolds
By Stacy Thomas
What do cranial sacral therapy and floristry have in common? Nothing, you say? Guess again.
Before Janine Reynolds and her husband Francis became owners of long-time local fixture Billie’s House, Janine was a massage and cranial-sacral therapist here in Squamish, and before that Australia. You might be wondering what these two seemingly different fields have in common, but it’s actually quite a lot.
Janine may not necessarily still be healing people through her hands, but she continues to get that sense of healing through providing a beautiful, soothing space for her customers and being there for all the emotive moments of their lives.
“Billie’s is all about community and creating a safe sanctuary for people to come to,” she says. “A lot of people come in the shop, and they just come to take a breath of nice beautiful air and just be here and have a conversation, or just to look at pretty things. They don’t necessarily buy anything; they just want a little bit of a safe space. So that’s really, really important to us, to provide that.”
“It’s not necessarily about selling something to everybody who walks in the door, but just providing a nice place in the community for people to come.”
Community. As a centrepiece of downtown Squamish since 1973, Billie’s House is one of the longest-running businesses here, and that’s one of the reasons Janine and Francis decided to purchase the shop in 2018 – that presence as an institution and the long-standing connection to the community.
When the couple took over, they knew next to nothing about running a floral shop, let alone how the floral industry works, but Janine credits her years of experience working in restaurants, from dishwashing at 14 to managing by the time she left the industry, for her seamless transition into the fast-paced floral retail world. They, too, have similarities, she says; both revolve around selling perishable products, and both involve the creative process of perfecting “recipes” – recipes that are customized for each customer’s needs, or honed down to minute details and repeated with precision, like for weddings.
She admits that working with plants was a whole new world and a challenging learning process.
“It’s been huge, but when you throw yourself into it, it’s been fun, and it’s never-ending, even the people who have worked here for years and years, it’s never-ending for them too, that’s what’s fun about the job, one day is never the same as the next.”
Janine doesn’t get much of a chance to slow down that fast pace, with three daughters (18,17 and 4) at home. Before they took over Billie’s, Janine was working at her massage therapy practice and Francis was working remotely, commuting regularly to the UK. It wasn’t working. Now that they’ve been working together for over three years, she in the shop, Francis taking care of all the back-end stuff and deliveries (“He waves at everybody”) she says she wouldn’t want to go back.
The way things are going, it’s not like she’ll have to.
When the pandemic started, they had a brief period of closure and then went deliveries-only for a while, and that’s when they took the opportunity to renovate. Then they reopened the shop, and ever since then, the business has been brisk.
“The floral industry has picked up a lot since covid hit, everybody’s been very grateful and loving towards their people who they can’t see right now,” Janine says. “But weddings have definitely gone down dramatically, and the size of weddings – a lot of wedding clientele are from overseas, Americans come to get married at Whistler, so those have really dwindled, but the shop itself is adapting to what we need to do.”
For Janine, what they need to do is continue to be there for the community that the shop has been serving for almost five decades; “Just creating a safe, nice place for people to be is really important, especially in this day and age, that’s really important to me.”
