Three weeks ago today we sat down to finalize the purchase of our new home at 1525 Wisconsin Avenue in Georgetown.  Less than three weeks later – on Saturday we opened the doors to Via Umbria for the first time.

Nearly a year ago, when we were sadly closing the doors of Bella Italia on Hampden Lane in Bethesda (and happily moving in to share space with our friend and neighbor Deborah at the Waygoose) we waxed “when one door closes another door opens.”  Last Saturday that other door finally opened.

What a lot can happen in three weeks, especially with the help of an army of friends and family.  In those weeks we experienced eating dinner cross-legged on the floor at 11PM at the store (a lot of french fries were involved), taking out the entire front window to lift in our new Ape (our three wheeled Italian farm vehicle which we discovered was too wide to fit through the front door), unpacking and unpacking (and unpacking) boxes and boxes (and boxes) of new products, printing mile long necklaces of stickers to label every.tiny.thing., rearranging the shelf organization many many times, and finally, throwing open the doors to old friends and new friends alike.

And that the flurry of activity and sleepless nights has paid off – Via Umbria has been born and we are open as a Holiday pop up store, the first phase in our evolution to the Via Umbria that we started imagining when that first door closed.  And judging by the reaction of our opening day customers, who left with arms filled with unique gifts and lifestyle items, many share our dream.  At our opening, the most popular item was our truffle honey, now tell me who already has THAT (ok, the people that bought it on Saturday)!

But just as we cross one thing off our list, we add another, and tomorrow we meet with our architects to finalize plans for the next phase of Via Umbria, our permanent market. More details in the Spring . . .

And as for now we are off to our farmhouse in Umbria where we will be hosting three weeks of Food and Wine tours – so refresh this page often.  And if this month’s posts make you want to join us next year, you know where to find us!