So here you are, wondering how all this came about. Well, allow us to tell you the story.
It's a story about family, hometowns, and making a difference.
It began in 2016 with the purchase of a row of three adjacent historic buildings in downtown Lyons, New York. A hometown location with the memory of the three previous unique storefronts, but with the opportunity and challenge to create a new experience and a new vision to revive the downtown area.
About a week prior to opening our flagship location, the question was asked, "What type of store will it be exactly?" The answer was clear, "It will always be evolving." The name of the store came shortly after with the message and call to action for our familiar hometown to follow suit; if you're going to survive, you have to evolve to continue to remain relevant.
Not long after our successful opening, we were expanding our concept to the Waterloo Premium Outlets with several retail locations and even a café.
In 2018 Lyons Flowers & Gifts was added next to the Evolve For The Home location in downtown Lyons to fill the void of the long absent presence of a florist in the community.
With the challenge presented by the COVID shutdowns beginning in March of 2020 came the opportunity to reevaluate our situation and transform all three of the retail portions of the Lyons buildings, including Lyons Flowers & Gifts, into Evolve - The Christmas Store Lyons in July of 2021.
The response from across the country has been overwhelming and supportive and clearly compliments our goal to increase tourism traffic into our downtown locations. Historic Downtown Lyons was placed on the National Register of Historic Downtowns in 2018 for very good reason. It offers a walkable, historic location absent from all the hustle and bustle and urban sprawl that have enveloped so many places.
We are a small organization that employees locally, banks locally, buys locally, and lives locally and yes, grew up locally. We have a strong interest in the communities we establish roots in because we feel that's the basis of our roots. It's how we were raised.
We appreciate you taking the interest in us enough to read our statement About Us, and we hope we can assist you and encourage you to take part in your local communities to make a change, and make a difference!