Flowers and food add to the pulling power of Paragon Arcade

NEW TENANT: Katrina Moore outside Artisan Flowers in Paragon Arcade, in Hull

By Rick Lyon

A fanfare of flowers has signalled the next round of changes at a popular Victorian arcade in Hull city centre.

Katrina Moore has pursued a policy of upmarket downsizing after closing her previous shop in north Hull and opening Artisan Flowers in Paragon Arcade.

Allenby Commercial, the owners of the building, are now working with three more new tenants who will open in the coming weeks and months, with each of them enhancing the arcade’s reputation as a destination for great food.

Georgia Allenby, Design and Marketing Manager at Allenby Commercial, said: “Paragon Arcade is all about giving innovative, creative new businesses a start. That means every now and then some of them move on for various reasons and present opportunities for others to follow. 

“That’s what’s happening now and it’s really exciting. We’ve helped some of our tenants expand into bigger space here and we’ve found new arrivals to replace people who have relocated or moved online. The previous florist retired so we were delighted when Katrina came in because every city centre needs what Artisan Flowers can do.”

Katrina opened The Plant Pot in her husband’s angling shop in Greenwood Avenue in 2014.

She said: “We opened The Plant Pot because my parents had a garden centre and I’d been interested in horticulture since I was a teenager.

“It was fantastic and really busy but we wanted to downsize and specialise in more upmarket products and one of my friends told me there was a unit coming up at Paragon Arcade. I came here with my grandchildren to look at it and we decided it was for me.

DOING THINGS DIFFERENTLY: Katrina with colleagues Izzy Gruczek, left, and Amy Garden

“We needed to make some changes because the previous florist had been there for a long time and with Artisan Flowers I wanted to do different things. We do terrariums, bonsai and all kinds of other plants, house plants and fresh flowers. We supply businesses for their offices – flowers and planters, we talk to the clients and find out what they want.”

Katrina plans to open a consultation suite above the shop after Christmas, giving customers the space to discuss buying flowers for special and sensitive occasions. With her two staff Amy Garden and Izzy Gruczek she also intends to offer workshops in making terrariums and other skills.

In recent months the Paragon Arcade traders have been joined by Paragon Tattoo and Asian street food business Oishii Ne, with record store Out of the Attic and coffee and food outlet Milchig having both doubled their footprint.

Georgia added: “We’ve still got The Hispanist, which has been here since 2019, and coming soon we’re adding Chinese street food, one of the best pizza makers in the area and a health bar as well. They are all local, independent business bursting with ideas and they’re a great fit with the community we’ve built here.”