MONTVERDE, Fla. – Tina Aldrich is a Florida native who chose to live in Montverde and open her business there because she knew it would keep its small-town charm.
“When our daughter went to college, we went ahead and moved to our cabin in North Carolina,” she said. “Then when we moved back, I’m like, ‘I want to move back to a place where the footprint will not change,’ and this little burb is not going to change. It’s going to change all around us and has — I mean Hancock (Road) was not even a road when we moved up to North Carolina, you know? So that’s what made us decide to come back here to Montverde.”
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Before moving back from North Carolina, Aldrich had the opportunity to work in a fudge and candy shop, learning the ins and outs of the business. She admits it was not a great passion of hers, but when she moved back to Montverde she noticed something was missing in the community.
“I’m like, ‘The only thing we don’t have is sweets. We don’t have sweets. So let’s do ice cream and candy — that’d be fun,’” she said.
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This revelation led her to open Orange Blossom Candies & Cream. Though she was a novice to the candy business, Aldrich had run other businesses in the past including a long-time florist shop in Winter Garden.
“I am just an entrepreneur, and obviously my personality is kind of very outgoing and so I just, I don’t like to give up,” she said.
As it turned out, she would need that stick-to-it-iveness as she wound up having to open her business right in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Anybody who’s ever started a business knows that you don’t, you don’t start the business two weeks before you open. It’s like months before,” Aldrich said. “So once you’re already doing that, and then the pandemic hits, you’re like, ‘Huh, you know, what? Worst (thing) that happens is that window is going to become a new window where I can serve out of the window and all of this that won’t last forever and at some point, we will open’ but we never did have to do that. We were able to put our lines and everybody wore masks, and we got through it.”
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Now, roughly four years later, her business is a thriving community staple. The shop is near Montverde Academy and has become a lunch hot spot for the student there.
“So the kids coming in here always like ‘Miss Tina, Miss Tina,’ (and) everybody gives me hugs,” Aldrich said.
On the latest Florida Foodie, Aldrich shares what it was like for her growing up in Florida and growing her family in Montverde. She also shares some of her confections with Candace Campos and Lisa Bell.
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