Help a DC Small businessman rebuild his dream company

Help us get our DC Limo business up and running!

Hi, all! My husband Tambe ran and was the main employee/chef at our store —Iacovelli Cafe & Liquor in Petworth (Washington, DC) —for six years before we were given a 30 day notice to either pay an increase in rent of 100% or vacate. Unfortunately, like many small businesses, we were forced to shut down and lost everything after a successful, albeit tough, six years in business.

Right around this time we had a baby (hi, TJ!) and my husband took the opportunity to stay at home with our son while he figured out his next move. He had always loved to drive so decided to sign up for Uber as well as put in the paperwork to get his limo license so he could start a new company. While we had the store my husband bought his dream car, a Cadillac, and decided it was the perfect DC vehicle to use For Hire.

During this time, we found a need in our community for transportation to and from the airport for families with young children who may not want to travel w their car seats. We had a giant car and a bunch of car seats, plus Tambe has the strength of 10 men (yes, I married Gaston! Lol) so it just made sense to start this business and try to help our neighbors at the same time!

Unfortunately, our Cadillac needed some work that set us back a decent amount of money (and also, the limo license is taking forever!). While the Cadillac was being fixed we bought a used Kia Soul for my husband to do Uber with. His second week of doing Uber, a Circulator bus hit the drivers side door and almost struck my husband. So we had to pay for a new door, which was 1/3 of the cost we paid for the car! Got the Kia back with the new door and the very next week, someone attempted to steal our car—and destroyed that same door we just had fixed. We took it to the Kia dealer because they had a recall/fix for the ignition to try to prevent the “Kia Boys” theft from happening again. We couldn’t get the door fixed yet but it closed so we decided to live with our hack of opening the door from the passenger side (the thief ripped off the door handle completely).

While the Kia was in the shop, we got the Cadillac back! Hooray! I left for a work trip and my husband decided to drive our children and another family for a weekend excursion to the beach. He made it to Delaware and the engine died! The mechanic said the only option was to replace the engine (around $10k).

I came back from my work trip to this news (I was glad no one got hurt!) but also the Kia engine fix was ready so my husband went to pick it up in Alexandria. Not even a mile down the road, the wheel went flying off his car and he got into an accident! The dealership forgot to bolt the tire onto the car! Thankfully my husband only suffered minor injuries to his foot and no one else was injured but the front of the car was destroyed. The Kia dealership fixed the front of the car and replaced the tire (but didn’t fix the door). And this, my friends, is why I am here asking for your support! My husband is too proud to ask anyone for help and I just want to help him get the cars in working order so he can begin operating his new business!

Due to all of these setbacks my husband started looking for other work opportunities. He was spending a lot of time volunteering with our children’s schools however and an opportunity to become a long-term substitute PE teacher with DCPS came up and he took it immediately! Now that the school year is ending though he wants to try to find a way to get the engine fixed and move forward with the Cadillac for hire business. He is hoping the school will hire him full-time next year but he just doesn’t know so he really wants to get this in order. If you can help us earn the money to fix the engine it would mean the world to us! My husband is one of the hardest working men I know! He is extremely passionate and even if he does get his dream job of becoming a full-time PE teacher he still wants to offer this car service to our neighborhood families. Really appreciate if you’ve read this far and any assistance you can provide will be greatly appreciated!

Thank you to our friends, families, and customers for all of your support over the years!