For Business Owners, It's Like a Death in the Family

"This is horrible, simply horrible, to not only our family but to our Capitol Hill family," she said.

Fancy Dairy Products

Ray Bowers stood outside Eastern Market at 2:30 a.m. yesterday, watching flames shoot out of the roof. "It was hard watching it. I still can't believe it," he said later.

Bowers's father opened Bowers Fancy Dairy Products in 1963, and, until yesterday, shoppers could stop at the counter to sample one of 50 domestic or imported cheeses.

Ray Bower and his son Michael ran the shop with two part-time employees who have been with them for years. Bowers is most concerned about his employees.

"It's like being told your marriage of 44 years has ended," Bowers said. "It's hard to swallow."

Handmade Jewelry and Art

Nikki Dean, 33, Lakisha Dickson, 29, and Quest Skinner, 29, have designed and sold jewelry on weekends at the market for years. Like many other vendors who set up shop outside of the market on Seventh Street or North Carolina Avenue SE, the women did not lose any possessions in the fire.

But they said they were worried about the future of the market and the employees who worked inside. Skinner calls them "my family."

Skinner said she quit a job as an entertainer eight years ago to sell jewelry full time at the market.

"This was the beginning of my black entrepreneur dream. It's now interrupted," Skinner said as she sipped on a glass of merlot in Tunnicliff's and tried to relax.

"It's a vintage market. It's like stepping into old Europe. Now it looks like it's condemned overnight," she said.

Dickson said she often sold 25 to 100 pieces of jewelry or art on weekends. "When I came here and saw the windows were burned out, I just couldn't believe it. I still just can't believe it."

While working at the market, Skinner said, she has met several members of Congress, including Reps. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and Shelley Berkley (D-Nev.), whom she called two of her "regulars."

"It's the one place in the city where urban meets suburban, but we all got along. It was truly a family," Skinner said. "I had customers telling their children to call me Auntie Quest."

Staff writer Elissa Silverman contributed to this report.