University of South Carolina alum Maria Colalancia’s life changed when she started throwing dinner parties for strangers.

Colalancia was already thriving. She earned her bachelor's degree in retailing with a concentration in fashion merchandising and digital innovations in 2018. After the pandemic, she moved to Boston to work for Wayfair. She started as a category manager and has since been promoted to head of curated merchandising, running physical retail for the company’s AllModern brand. As she settled into her new home, inspiration struck.

“It was about a year into living here, and I really liked it and liked my job, so I decided to try to really put down roots here,” Colalancia says. “I grew up in a family where hosting and eating together was such a big part of our lives. When I started looking to build my community, I immediately heard my grandfather’s voice saying that the best way to get to know somebody was over a glass of wine.”

She took a leap, posting a video on TikTok saying she wanted to meet new people, build a community, and start hosting dinner parties.

“The response was crazy,” she says. “I had 700 people sign up, and then I just kind of threw everything together and it's just really been building from there.”

Her idea became The Apertivo Society, now a passionate community of thousands of New England-based members all showing up to tables full of strangers for dinner. More than a year of success led her to try her hand at a longtime ambition.

“I've always wanted a store. Even when I was at USC I thought this was where I wanted to be at some point,” she says. “I came across the storefront pretty randomly. I was with a friend of mine and she said, 'Look, you just need to do it. If you don't do it now, you're never going to do it, and you're never really ready to do things, you just have to do it.'”

Colalancia launched a fundraiser to gather support, and on July 1 her dream came true as she opened Aperitivo:The Shop in Boston’s North End.

“A couple hundred square feet in one of my favorite neighborhoods in Boston. A space for the Aperitivo Society community to gather on a regular basis. A shop for carefully curated home goods and specialty groceries. A blank slate for events and parties and collaborations. A community spot. A neighborhood spot,” she says. 

As she starts her latest venture (while still also working full-time with Wayfair), Colalancia holds fond memories of her time at South Carolina and the lessons learned which have helped her thrive, and particularly of a favorite instructor, Sallie Boggs. 

Asked to share advice for current students hoping to follow in her footsteps, she says “I think if you want to start a business, the best advice I've ever been given is you should just do it. You're never really ready and overthinking it is never going to do you any good. So you should just do it. I really wouldn't be here without that advice. And if you're ever in Boston, come see us!”