Olive Tree Beginnings
Beginning our first shop with a baby olive tree
Ciao friends.
We’ve been scurrying around preparing plans for our little shop to become something of beauty for customers and passerby. As we slowly emerge into a new season of spring that we’ve been anticipating for months (at least, in this house!), we enter into a new season of our business with a store of our own.
How did this come about? Slowly.
Last year, it became apparent that we not only had outgrown our little shop in our basement, but that our property might not be zoned properly to actually have our business out of our home. We drafted plans to renovate an existing barn on our property and proposed it to the township. Their answer? No. No even though we have 17 acres and planned a separate drive to the event space. No even though we wouldn’t be open every day. No even if it were a unique business from a global perspective.
Okay, then.
Meanwhile, we had over 1600 liters of olive oil bobbing around somewhere in the Mediterranean coming from sunny Southern Italia, more than we’ve ever imported to sustain our growing family of consumers.
It was time to get jiggy with it and figure out plan B.
Fast forward a couple of weeks later, and here we are, with our very own storefront in a bustling area of Greater Reading, PA, picking out paint colors that complement a gorgeous pot that I fell in love with for a baby olive tree.
This olive tree will be central to our shop, offering a “benvenuto” to each guest from our faraway grove.
I hope it brings a smile to their face.
<3 Laura