V-Day is payday: Some businesses see among their biggest revenue on Valentine's Day

Robert Gentry was dressed for the occasion Monday -- Valentine's Eve -- at the Corner Grocery Store in downtown Cape Girardeau. His T-shirt was chocolate brown with a sparkly gold validation across the front.

"Chocolate doesn't ask silly questions," it read. "Chocolate understands."

"There's three major candy seasons for us," he said. "Thanksgiving through Christmas, Valentine's Day and Kentucky Derby Day."

The timing of the holiday this year means more work for some, but also more business.

"We're normally closed on Sundays and Mondays, but we were here 10 hours yesterday," he said. "Those days, we usually exhale, but we've been breathing in for a long time -- whatever it takes to keep us on our feet."

Anitre Bahner selects flowers Friday from the cooler for a Valentine's Day arrangement at Dalton Florist in Jackson.Laura Simon

Jeanie Woods, who owns Dalton Florist in Jackson, said for her business the holiday is even more crucial.

"This is our Christmas," she said. "We probably do 10 times our normal business."

Last year, Valentine's Day fell on a Sunday, which Woods said meant slightly less business. A mid-week Valentine's Day is good for florists, however.

"We'll be here day and night," she said. "Each of us will work about 20 extra hours until we get it done," she said.

Her coworker, Anitra Bahner, said in her six years at Dalton -- which has been in business under various owners for more than 65 years -- she's noticed customers' tastes changing.

"People don't just buy flowers," she said. "They like something else to go with it -- something they can keep. You have to be more than flowers now."

That meant widening their offerings to accommodate changing tastes, from candy bouquets to wreaths and bath bombs.

The shift in demand is due in part to people buying for more than just wives, she said.

"It's more than women," she said.

More and more, people come in and buy for their children or friends rather than strictly romantic interests.

"Still, there are a lot of people who like to call in and order the flowers and have them delivered," she said. "As far as getting ready for it, we've been getting ready for weeks."

That means ordering hundreds of roses as well as prepping mentally for the rush of the big day.

"We'll have a couple hundred orders," she said.

And every year, the orders roll in right up to the last hour of business.

As he paid Gentry for his box of chocolate strawberries, Travis East said he was confident his wife would be pleased -- with the sweets and with where he got them.

"She says you cannot get chocolate strawberries like this," he said.

"I drive up and down Broadway several times a week," he said, but added he hadn't made it into the corner store until he was tagged in a post on social media earlier in the day.

"I think it's important to support local businesses," East said. "You just can't beat it."

Down the street from where the Gentrys were making chocolate-covered strawberries, an eight-person team at Chocolate Works was doing the same.

"We have had so many orders," Lauren Stegeman, marketing director of Fonn Enterprises, which owns Chocolate Works, said as she stripped off a pair of rubber gloves. "I was actually filling some right now."

The strawberries are their most popular item, she said, but the other orders vary.

Some customers want detailed candies such as Oreos with "love" written in chocolate on top.

Other customers just ask for "anything pink or anything red," she said.

"And we are still taking orders," she said. "Tomorrow will be just as busy, if not even worse. Or actually better, I guess you would say."

tgraef@semissourian.com

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