09/24/2026
This morning I joined the Alexandria Chamber Professional Women’s Network for Coffee & Connections at Gadsby’s Tavern Museum, and I left with a full notebook and a lot of inspiration.
It was wonderful to meet so many talented women doing great work in our community. And the setting could not have been more fitting. The museum currently has an exhibition on women in business, and I learned that the building itself has a history of exactly that.
From 1794 to 1800, a woman named Hannah Griffith ran the Alexandria Coffee House right inside these walls. She made a deliberate choice to run a high-end establishment catering to wealthy merchants, elites, and business travelers of the early American republic. She knew her market, and she built for it.
More than 230 years later, women were gathering in the same building to trade ideas and make connections over coffee. I think Hannah would approve.
As a woman who owns a construction company, I spend a lot of time in old Alexandria buildings, and I’m always reminded that every one of them has so many stories to tell.
Thank you to the The Chamber ALX | Supporting Businesses & Cultivating Community and Gadsby's Tavern Museum for a lovely morning. If you haven’t seen the women in business exhibition yet, it’s worth the visit.
