Flora & Field Botanicals’ founder and owner, Sarah Wathen (left), at her pop-up flower stand outside of UCF’s Weekday Coffee shop on Thursday. Wathen is forming a bouquet of flowers for a customer who came to her stand.
Angel Rodriguez
From attending UCF together to now owning small businesses in Orlando, these UCF alumni partnered together to bring a flower-and-coffee event to campus.
On-campus coffee shop Weekday Coffee hosted its first flower bar pop-up on Oct. 1 alongside another alumni-owned business, Flora & Fields Botanical.
The event grabbed the attention of many UCF students and led to even a relocation of the flower cart within the store to accommodate the crowd at the event, said Ricky Bravo, Weekday’s co-founder.
The event ran from 8:00 a.m. until the flower shop sold out of all its inventory around noon.
Weekday’s founders, Ricky Bravo and David Benjamin, are UCF alumni who were roommates back when they attended UCF and now founded the coffee shop, which had their grand opening on Sept. 14, 2026.
“Being an alumni-owned coffee shop, we really want to showcase other businesses that have come out of UCF,” said Bravo. “And for it to be a full-circle moment for a lot of local businesses that maybe students may never hear about.”
Flora & Field Botanicals set up a pop-up shop inside and outside Weekday Coffee. Sarah Wathen, UCF class of 2017, owns the flower company.
Wathen graduated with a dual degree in communications and business. She started her flower business in 2018 after arranging flowers for a friend’s wedding, and since then, events have been the business’s main focus.
“My first time actually making florals was for my best friend; her wedding was in 2018, and that’s why I say that Flora and Field was established in 2018 because it was literally that wedding and doing florals for her that birthed these last several years,” Wathen said.
Although Flora & Field Botanicals usually focuses on weddings and large events, the Weekday asked them to set up a flower pop-up shop at the store, and Wathen accepted.
Bravo said this was their first time doing a pop-up event.
“This was the first time that I did something like this, something outside of my wheelhouse, which is primarily event-based florals and weddings,” Wathen said. “And this will hopefully be a new chapter of what Flora and Field will become.”
Wathen said her desire to come to UCF and put up the flower pop-up shop was centered on the ask by Bravo.
“Ricky [Bravo] and I have been pretty good friends through all of college; we’re in each other’s lives a lot, and whenever he told me about Weekday starting up, he said, ‘I really want you to consider a flower event…’ so that’s been a conversation that’s been happening behind the scenes since before they got up and running,” Wathen said.
Wathen saw the event as an opportunity to work with a friend and to spend time with the UCF student community.
“My opportunities to get back on campus sometimes feel limited, but now having this thing that I’ve started as a passion that’s become a small business, it’s created an opportunity for me to actually get on campus, be around students and connect with them,” Wathen said.
She said her favorite part of setting up the flower pop-up bar at Weekday Coffee was getting to talk to UCF students and hear about their lives. She looks forward to coming back and talking to students again.
“It’s cool to see sales and seeing people be interested in this thing you’re putting out there for the world to experience, but I think getting to talk to students, connect with them and hear about their majors, what they’re doing today and what their lives are like, I think those are really sweet moments, and I think that’s what I’m probably looking forward to the most,” Wathen said.
Mara Jade, senior hospitality management major at UCF’s Rosen College, came to the main campus to meet a friend for coffee at Weekday and see the Flora & Field pop-up.
“I saw that they were doing it on Instagram, so I was like, ‘I have to get something,’” Jade said.
She said she enjoyed talking to Wathen before buying coffee at Weekday because Wathen shared her personal experiences with customers.
“She was very personable. She asked people what they liked and didn’t like and customized arrangements for them,” Jade said. “When you go into bigger stores, it’s like, ‘This is what we’ve got for you,’ but she was excited to see you, greet you, and she made it more personal.”
There’s a chance Flora & Field could become a monthly feature at Weekdays Coffee, according to Wathen.
“I think it would be really sweet if we were able to do it on a regular basis.” Wathen said. “I know the students were asking if we were coming back.”