After the success of the Museum Store and Il Baretto, inspired by Italian grocery stores in Boston’s North end; and after a stint working in Rome and seeing the elegant food stores; and after years of my friends telling me at dinner parties “you should open your own food business”, I made the classic mistake of so many design professionals - I listened to my own advice and opened this delightful, but frustrating, neighborhood-oriented shop only a few months later.

The design was inspired by the Museum Store even using the same Lundia display system - that we were to use again at the Capezio Dance Shop.

Especially in the first several years, the food quality was excellent and I was to receive many more awards than I ever would for architectural design.  The fame associated with this endeavor established me as a restaurant designer and led to subsequent commissions for the Water’s Edge, l’Oca Nera, Festa d’Italia and the Raleigh Restaurant, as well as several others.

The young boy was my downstairs neighbor and was my first and longest employee until he went off to college.  After all, as I learned in Rome, every Italian caffé needs a young errand boy.