Op/ed: Celebrate Winter Park's businesses

You are likely hearing a lot about “local” these days and may wonder what’s behind it.

It’s nothing too complex or worthy of a Lifetime movie. It’s all pretty simple. When someone talks about “local”, it’s simply recognition of the benefits of keeping spending close to home with the businesses that make our community vibrant. These businesses are owned by your friends, neighbors and possibly your own customers, if you’re a business owner. They are a part of the fabric that makes our community what it is, and are integral to why we love it. Without them the events we look forward to every year, from next week’s Winter Park Sidewalk Arts Festival, to Dinner On The Avenue, to Christmas in the Park, simply couldn’t exist — at least not to the extent that they do.

Earlier this week I heard that both Circa 1926 and Spice Modern Steakhouse on Park Avenue had closed. I posted my regrets on my ILUVWinterPark.com Facebook page and soon others were commiserating with me. I’d eaten in both, been in them during Winter Park Sip events, and knew them to be a part of the Winter Park landscape I cherish. Such small businesses aren’t just facades on the street, not just places to eat or drink. They employ people who shop and eat at other local businesses, they help to make Winter Park what it is today. Those businesses will change over time — and change surely keeps things more interesting — but when one is lost, the people who enjoyed and frequented surely will miss it.

Last year I participated in organizing the wonderful new “Park Avenue in the ’60s & ’70s” exhibit at the museum for the Winter Park Historical Society — if you haven’t been, you’re missing out! I have only been in Winter Park for six years, but was working with many people who have lived here their entire lives. It was wonderful to hear their recollections, some funny, others sad. But what came through in their stories and in their writings for the exhibit, was the love they have for this community and the attachment they felt toward businesses long gone. What they wrote about them was often so amazingly descriptive, warm and funny, it made me feel like I knew those businesses myself. This made me want to know where each business had been and what was there now. It also made me wonder which existing businesses were in the process of leaving such significant impressions. I wasn’t here during the ‘60s and ‘70s, most of us were not, but the stories I was told about the businesses these residents frequented, enjoyed and loved, gave me an idea of what it would have been like. Their recollections of those small businesses served as a window into that time in Winter Park.

I had a good idea Winter Park was special even before we officially moved here. We were living in Fort Lauderdale and our neighbors were more than a little sarcastic about our leaving the beaches, palm trees and all that went along with them. But once I began stating our next home would be Winter Park, their cynicism abated and each and every time — I swear — every person I told simply responded: “Oh, I love Winter Park.”

Winter Park is a truly special community for so many reasons. The terrific diversity of businesses and the people who own them are no doubt two of them. Last year when I began my website, ILUVWinterPark.com, which I started to celebrate locality, I coined a phrase: Parkpreneur. A Parkpreneur is to me anyone, from business owner to artist to Winter Park Boat Tour captain, to any number of others, who helps to keep Winter Park special and unique, and the place I truly do love calling home.

And when you’ve got our community’s version of local, often times to my other half’s chagrin, I think there’s very little need to go anywhere else.

Clyde V. Moore is the chief everything officer of I LUV Winter Park, Inc. Visit ILUVWinterPark.com