Beaches newcomer Michelle Cooper walked into Seahorse Florist on a Tuesday morning in April and left with two lifelong friendships.
At least, that’s what she had hoped.
“Harry and Midas. Sweethearts, both of them,” said Cooper, who was ordering a corsage for her son’s prom date. “I met them 15 minutes ago and feel like I’ve known them all my life.”
Harry Schnabel has operated Seahorse at 725 N. Third St. in Jacksonville Beach since buying the business in 1981.
Midas is his hefty 9-year-old golden retriever, a fixture at the shop since he was a puppy.
Cooper said she was disappointed to learn Schnabel and his beloved companion will soon be relinquishing the keys to the iconic business.
“Harry knows how to treat a customer. I call it, ‘the Chick-fil-A treatment,’” she said. “If the new owners learn from Harry, they’ll be learning from a master. I can tell that already.”
Schnabel, 74, says a Seahorse buyer is in place and he expects the sale to be wrapped up this month.
His advice to the new owner, who he handpicked after turning down other offers for the business: Treat everyone special — no exceptions.
“I have always based Seahorse on service, service, service. Then quality. Then price,” he said.
A New Jersey native, Schnabel moved to Jacksonville with his family when he was 12 and graduated in 1961 from Fletcher High School.
He returned to the Beaches after studying business administration at Carson-Newman University in Jefferson City, Tenn.
Schnabel worked at Lewis Business Forms and Procter & Gamble in Jacksonville before becoming sales manager at Kuhn Flowers.
That profession stuck with him.
He bought A David Flowers and renamed it.
“We were sitting around trying to come up with a name and my mom or dad or sister — someone — said, ‘Seahorse,’ and I said, ‘That’s it,’” he said.
Schnabel said he was told he should expect to turn a profit within three years or so. It was more like five or six.
“Of course, when you buy something, you have to pay it off. And when I finally paid it off, that helped a bunch,” he said.
Schnabel says neither his parents nor his education adequately prepared him for the business world.
“Hands-on experience. I learned business along the way by doing it,” he said.
In addition to fresh flowers, Seahorse has silk flowers, plants, balloons, cards, stuffed animals and other gifts.
Holidays, weddings and Fletcher graduations and proms are historically bread-and-butter times for Seahorse.
But the industry has dramatically changed through the years, particularly due to online sales and competition from grocery stores, discount stores like Wal-Mart, chains like Home Depot.
As a result, many flower shops have closed or merged with others. The Society of American Florists says the number of flower shops decreased from 27,341 in 1992 to 14,161 in 2013.
Schnabel says buying habits also have changed.
“Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day are just about it for our major holidays now as far as flower sales,” he said. “And when I first went into business, there was never (‘in lieu of flowers’) in obituaries. Now, all the obituaries say that.”
That’s where customer care — the key to small businesses turning a profit, Schnabel said — comes in.
Schnabel said he recently took down a sign at the store telling employees, “Just say yes. Then find a way.”
But the sign can go back up if it needs to.
Returning telephone calls and keeping your word are crucial, he said.
“If you say you’re going to have it delivered by 8 a.m., do it,” he said. “Granted, you might be running a single-bud vase from here to deep into Ponte Vedra, but you said you’d do it.”
Twice named the local chamber of commerce’s small business leader of the year, Schnabel has been active in civic and charitable organizations since Day 1.
His favorite community work has included mentoring a Neptune Beach Elementary School student and participating with Midas in Mayo Clinic’s pet-therapy program.
Schnabel and his gentle 95-pound companion visit cancer patients each week for two hours.
“It took a year to get certified at Mayo,” he said. “I told them that Midas was already trained and they said, ‘Not with us, he’s not. He’s got to go through all of our training.’”
The Mayo stopovers are a source of comfort of joy for the patients and their guests.
When it’s time for Schnabel and Midas to leave each week, the smiling patients are already looking forward to the next visit.
“You meet the nicest people and sometimes they are in tears when they hug or pet Midas,” he said. “It’s like they give themselves to the dog and it makes them feel better.”
Schnabel says that when he retires, it won’t be the last that customers and his four employees see of him and Midas.
“Midas is going to be missed — probably more than yours truly,” he said. “We’ll stop in sometimes when we’re passing by.”