“This is how Europeans buy flowers,” Colucci says. “We tend to buy for special occasions here, but there they buy flowers as a part of their everyday lives, to have on their tables and in their homes every day.”
The shop will have some hand-tied bouquets ready to go but will also hand-tie an arrangement of flowers of the customer’s choosing. “Of course we’ll also do the traditional arrangements,” Colucci adds, “but we hope this is something that catches on.” The New Paltz location also reinforces the concept of purchasing flowers for one’s own home by offering a selection of plants: elegant orchids, glass terrariums with a miniature world of plants inside and delicate air plants that require only a weekly misting of water to thrive.
Customers of the Meadowscent location in Gardiner already know the shop for their progressive style, Colucci says. “Our customers come to us for something a little different,” she says. “We know how to use flowers to make a statement with even just one stem of something special.”
All of the employees have to take classes to work at Meadowscent, she says, because the floral business is like fashion: it changes all the time. “It’s directly related,” Colucci says. “The colors that come out seasonally and also trends in interior design — it affects everything we do here. We work with Pantone colors [an international system that allows for accurate communication of colors in various design fields], and when Pantone introduces their color of the year, it affects us here with color schemes; we have to stay on top of color trends. It’s always changing.”
For store hours and more information, call (845) 255-3866 or visit www.meadowscent.com.
Green Taxi
Hard-working Mohammad Sadiq, who already works the overnight shift at the Mobil station on Chestnut Street in New Paltz, recently opened his own New Paltz-based business, Green Taxi, where he works days as a dispatcher and occasionally as a driver, too.
Green Taxi’s shiny new vehicles have become a frequent sighting around New Paltz; a white car with green lettering and a larger green van with yellow lettering.
Located at 235 Main Street not far from the SUNY campus, Green Taxi caters to SUNY students who need a ride to class and to the elderly who don’t drive anymore but need to run errands. The taxi service offers local rides within a two-mile radius inside the town for $4.50. An additional $2 per mile is charged for rides that extend outside the village.
Green Taxi has been approved to provide medical transport for those who need a ride to or from a hospital or doctor’s office, says Sadiq, and background checks are performed on drivers. (His motto is “Safety First.”)
The service provides transportation throughout Ulster County and surrounding areas including Poughkeepsie and they go to all the major airports. Rates to the airports are lower than those of competitors, Sadiq adds. A ride from New Paltz to Stewart Airport, for example, costs $42.
The industrious native of Pakistan and resident of Highland started the business because he saw a need. “So many people asked me to call them a taxi while I was working [at Mobil] that I decided to open my own taxi business,” Sadiq says. After 11 years at the Mobil station, “everybody” in town knows him and trusts him, he says.
Green Taxi is open for business seven days a week, 24 hours a day and employs four other drivers in addition to Sadiq.
To book a taxi, call Green Taxi at (845) 255-4733. For more information, visit “Green Taxi of New Paltz” on Facebook.com.
Dohnut
The Kosiner Brothers Organic Hot Dog Cart has been a familiar sight at the Water Street Market in New Paltz over the past few years. But once the cold weather kicks in, what’s an outdoor vendor to do?
Turns out, the answer is “open a donut shop,” or more accurately, “Dohnut,” the new business opened last October by Jed and Brock Kosiner in a location just feet away from where their hot dog cart operates during the warmer months.
Technically, Dohnut is not really a shop, given that one can’t go inside, but the small space Dohnut inhabits at the Water Street Market is sheltered from the elements and provides enough space for the brothers to bake fresh donuts from scratch every morning and sell them out a sliding window that people line up at.
And line up they do — with good reason. These are seriously tasty donuts; crispy on the outside, moist on the inside and freshly covered with just the right amount of glaze. All donuts are either cake or yeast donuts, Brock explains, and while theirs are cake (yeast donuts are more labor intensive and they don’t have the space), they’ve been told by customers, he says, that their cake donuts are a lighter consistency than what one usually thinks of with cake donuts.
They also make a krohnut, which is kind of a cross between a donut and a croissant; still glazed on top, but buttery and flaky like a croissant. The process of making krohnuts takes two days to complete, Brock says, so krohnuts are not always available if a batch sells out quickly.
Dohnuts sell for $1.50 each and krohnuts for $5. Hot chocolate, hot cider and coffee are also available.
Dohnut flavors are rotated every day. The half dozen or so selections are posted on a sign at the location and daily on their Facebook page (“Dohnut New Paltz”). The options might include Dulce de Leche, Nutella Glaze, Banana Rum, Cinnamon & Sugar, Gingerbread, Butterscotch, Blueberry and Maple Bacon, which has little pieces of bacon embedded in its maple glaze.
The Kosiner brothers, who were raised on Long Island in Long Beach, have a good partnership going. Jed Brock says he’s more into the baking and the running of the business, while older brother Brock, who is also a drummer in local bands, is more artistic. “He’s the one who does our logo and the signs,” Jed says, “and he comes up with some of the more unusual flavors we have.”
They’ve both lived in New Paltz for about six or seven years, Brock says. The initial idea for the hot dog cart came about when Jed noticed the lack of a good hot dog at the time in New Paltz, and Brock, who’d been hitting the pavement in suit and tie pursuing employment with his SUNY-earned MBA in business administration, found himself shortly thereafter running the brothers’ organic hot dog business (and enjoying not working in an office).
“We’ve been really well-received by New Paltz,” Brock says. “I attribute our success to this town. And like any business should, we listen to our customers to what they want and what they like.”
The brothers have already added one employee — Mike Gasbera, a business student at SUNY — and hope to make the donut business a year-round enterprise even after bringing back the hot dog cart next spring. The hot dog cart goes to private parties, too, and events like last year’s Craft Beer Festival and Mohonk’s “locavore” food tasting events. The Kosiner brothers even sell their popular zucchini relish by the jar at Mohonk.
Dohnut is located at 10 Main Street, Suite 106 in the Water Street Market in New Paltz. For hours and more information, call (845) 464-8520 or visit Dohnut on Facebook.com.
