In September of 2018, we proudly busted open the doors to our family-run Italian restaurant on Connecticut Avenue, sporting two goals: teaching people how to properly pronounce Americano and creating a sense of community through hospitality in the neighborhood we called home.

On day 3 of our existence, Washington Post food critic Tom Sietsema graced our walls, and then again on days 7, 9, and 11. A fair and favorable review followed 35 days later. Customers enthusiastically poured through our doors. We got Michelin nods both in 2019 and 2020. Business was great. We were cranking.

At 10 pm on March 25, 2020, DC mandated a shutdown of dining at all its restaurants. The rest is history. We all navigated the impacts and the personal losses created by COVID the best we could. 2022 arrived, and optimism teased its way back into our lives, but only for a fleeting moment. The worst was yet to come for us small, mom-and-pop neighborhood restaurants. Our city lost 48 restaurants that year, followed by 52 in 2023, 73 in 2024, and 92 in 2025. 2026 is on par to lose another 100 restaurants here in Washington, DC. Most of the casualties have been medium-priced mom-and-pop restaurants like ours.

Does our neighborhood need our restaurant anymore? We hope so.

We're in trouble and we need your help to save our family restaurant and stay put. We're hosting a fundraiser and auction, A Carnevale for I'm Eddie Cano, on Sunday, February 15. We have an ambitious three-tiered plan to save our restaurant by April 2026. We hope to raise $100,000 the night of our fundraiser and then raise another $35,000 on this GoFundMe. All this time, we are actively attempting to engage our landlord to work out a reasonable repayment plan to help us get caught up on rent. The last and third tier of our plan is to aggressively sell gift cards that can be used at a future date at our restaurant. We need to accomplish the first two fundraising objectives first.

Last and very important, our lawyer has set up a trust account so that we can return the monies raised, minus the fees we've been charged, in the event we are not able to raise enough money to keep us put. Our intention is to return these generous donations if we do not meet our goals by April.