A Store Worth Celebrating
Coco Bella celebrates its grand reopening
There’s something different and almost un-Miami-like about Coco Bella that’s noticeable from the moment you walk in. Located on Alcazar Avenue next to Banana Berry, this cozy gift shop radiates an authentic, small-town atmosphere with its array of candles, mugs, jewelry, and other quaint goods and accessories. The cuteness of Coco Bella is what attracted Esther Prinz to the store when she was a student at Miami Dade College.
“Whenever I go on vacation, I find cute little gift stores. It doesn’t matter if you’re in Colorado, California, New York, anywhere, there are always gift stores. But I’ve never found one in Miami,” Prinz says. “So, that’s why when I found [Coco Bella], I was like, ‘I have been looking for this my entire life.’”
Prinz started helping out the mother-and daughter-duo who owned the store. She loved it so much that she continued working there after graduating college and starting her career in human resources. She faced a dilemma, however, when the owners told her they planned on closing down the shop. Prinz was distraught; she loved Coco Bella and hated the idea of a Coral Gables without it.
So, with the backing of the owners, an agreement with the landlord, and the encouragement of her day-job bosses, she took over as the new owner of Coco Bella, signing the papers on Feb. 7, 2020.
When the COVID-19 pandemic struck just a month later, Prinz worked tirelessly to ensure that Coco Bella remained in business. She partnered with a seamstress to manufacture masks and found another company that made hand sanitizer, and with those additions to its inventory, Coco Bella was declared an essential business and was allowed to stay open, a pivotal move in Prinz’s early months of ownership.
“If I had known COVID was going to happen, I never would’ve gotten the store, which is crazy to say now,” the young entrepreneur says. “Everything happens for a reason.”
Prinz persevered through a difficult 2020, which included getting let go from her HR job in August and a weeklong hospitalization in September. Now, she says, one of her greatest joys is working with her customers to find something special that best suits them or the person they’re buying a gift for. Her returning clients include celebrities that come from all over Miami as well as locals.
Coco Bella recently celebrated its grand reopening on February 8., its five-year anniversary with Prinz at the helm. After the official ribbon cutting with Coral Gables Mayor Vince Lago, Prinz sold gifts and goodies to dozens of shoppers and celebrated with friends. “The store is meant to be here, and I’m meant to own it,” she says. “I don’t know if it’s for forever or for right now, but this place is just meant to be, and it’s such a special feeling.”
Looking for more gems like Coco Bella? Read our past article Little Finds for Keeping and Gifting to discover more unique shops in the Gables.