Eagle Rock’s Premier Florist Retires After 25 Years (Video and Photos)

Maria Lujen was 16 years old when she arrived from Mexico to the United States, the youngest of five children. She spoke no English, had dropped out of school after third grade and, like many members of Mexican families at the time, worked in agricultural fields.

In an emotional community ceremony marked by Spanish guitar serenades on Friday, June 1, Lujen retired after some 25 years as the owner of , the charming flower shop next to restaurant, which is run by her son-and-daughter team of Andrew and Christy Lujen.

How Maria Lujen went from being a field worker to the owner not just of a flower shop on Colorado Boulevard but the entire building where the shop and Cacao Mexicatessen are located is a tale of one woman’s single-minded pursuit of the American Dream.

Maria was 19 years old when she met her husband, Marcos, while they both worked at a local restaurant. After they married in 1969, Maria was determined to provide a better life for her family (she and Marcos have two daughters, two sons and seven grandchildren). She took language classes and worked multiple jobs at various businesses, including the now-historic Van de Camp Bakery on Fletcher Avenue, The Lobby Bar in Echo Park, on Eagle Rock Boulevard and a gas station.

In 1989, with her husband’s support, Maria bought Eufloria Flowers, a dying business that she almost single-handedly transformed into Eagle Rock’s leading floral boutique. Cheerful and warm-hearted, she endeared herself to the community by working with students at , the Eagle Rock Chamber of Commerce, the , the , and a string of local nonprofit groups. In 2006, she bought the building in which she had rented her business space. Three years later, she helped her son Andrew pursue his dream of opening his own restaurant next door to Eufloria.

With her retirement, Maria has closed the flower shop that brought joy to generations of Eagle Rockers. It won’t be an empty space for long: Around the beginning of autumn, Cacao Mexicatassen will be ready to expand into the vacated space, boosting the number of patrons it can seat from the current 40 to about 80.

“We’re going to take our time with the construction,” Andrew Lujen told Patch. “The menu will remain the same more or less, but Christy is going to have to figure out how to serve double the number of people.”