It was a terrific marketing gimmick, and that's one reason I went inside the Cebolla Fine Flowers store on Lovers Lane. I had parked in front of the new store but had gone inside the Wild Birds Unlimited store a couple of doors down to see how a business can survive on bird seed. More about that later.

I came out a found a rose and a card on my windshield. It was a circus rose, I was told, and it came from Cebolla. Nice touch.
As you might imagine with such a gesture, the owners, Luit and Jamie Huizenga, are nice too. And they're planning their grand opening celebration Sunday, March 24, from 1 to 5 p.m.

It's a beautiful place, unlike any flower store I've seen.

Luit and friend, Wijnand Troost, are building a flower cooler inside out of massive concrete blocks, also unlike anything I've ever seen.

Luit and Jamie are the founders of the Dr. Delphinium store down the street, and they ran it for more than 10 years before selling and moving to southwestern Colorado. They went from tending flowers to tending a ranch.

They intended to open a flower shop there, called Cebolla, after the Cebolla river which runs through their ranch, but they decided to come back to Dallas instead. "Cebolla," in Spanish, means onion. Not to be confused with the aroma that's inside.

Luit and friend Wijnand are both from Holland, and as they worked both were wearing wooden shoes, which are traditional in Holland. And they're also very protective in areas where you are working with 300-pound concrete blocks.

Besides flowers, Cebolla sells gift items, antique furniture and a line of pottery made in the Czech Republic. Jamie says their store is the only one in the United States that carries the pottery.

"photo text... Luit Huizenga maneuvers a concrete block into place on the flower cooler he is building for his Cebolla flower store."

"photo text... Traditional in Holland, Luit Huizenga's native country, wooden shoes are also very practical when you're working with 300-pound concrete blocks."