From hardware to florists - your nominations for Best Shop are pouring in

On day nine of the Best Shops in Ireland competition the number of nominations is now into five figures, almost three times the votes we received in last year’s competition.

To date the specialist shop category currently accounts for almost a quarter of all the nominations. Readers are backing their local hardware stores in big numbers. In “this era of big” The Paint Pot, Orwell Shopping Centre, Templeogue, Dublin 6W, “is the best place to shop for anything from a needle to an anchor”, writes reader Maura Purcell. It’s a place she loves to bring her grandchildren and describes the service as “good humoured, “helpful” and “fun”.

Florists are polling well too. One reader describes the mini garden centre stocking seasonal flowers and plants at La Belle Fleur, Church Street, Drumshambo, Co Leitrim as "a little oasis, full of colour and birdsong". In the "relatively quiet country town" it is "an ever changing store of temptation". "Each a visit is uplifting even if you have no occasion to make a purchase."
In the Best Salon category Polly Dollies, Main Street, Finglas, is a nail bar run by single mother of three Polly McKenna. She caters for mothers and daughters "without the whole toddlers and tiaras thing", writes reader Natalie Peavoy.

The artisan food and greengrocers section account for nine per cent of the votes. Reader Siobhan Macauley “couldn’t do without” the family-run Arcadia Delicatessen on Belfast’s Lisburn Road for its “excellent local produce”. Serving the community for three generations if they don’t have something in stock “the knowledgeable staff will get it asap either that afternoon or the next day”.

This is the third year of the Irish Times competition which launched in recession-blighted 2012. We've enlisted experts in their fields to sit on our judging panel, a new feature of the competition. Simon Pratt, MD of Avoca, Edmund Shanahan, a retail, fashion and homewares consultant, fashion designers and Frockadvisor columnists Sonya Lennon and Brendan Courtney and Irish Times journalist Alanna Gallagher.

Finally, a great caffeine-fuelled shout out to Marco Lorrado at Terra Madre Cafe, for creating this frothy cappuccino billboard, which features letters in a chocolate “paint” made by mixing cocoa powder with a little milk. To write the request he used a stick as a pen. This kind of creativity should be celebrated and want you see more of it. We will publish the best pictures.

How do you nominate your favourite shop? Go to Irishtimes.com/bestshops and fill in the form. Follow the competition on Hashtag bestshops14