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Empanadas from her mom and grandmom inspire a career

Though dated by today's standards, the "ladies' entrance" was once a common feature of American taverns. These secondary doorways were intended to help women circumvent the coarser elements of the typical barroom, where female customers rarely set foot. An afterthought then, the concept seems antiquated and patronizing in 2016.

Jezabel Careaga, restocking alfajores, renamed her cafe in Fitler Square and has added more Argentine specialties.
Jezabel Careaga, restocking alfajores, renamed her cafe in Fitler Square and has added more Argentine specialties.Read moreDAVID SWANSON / Staff Photographer

Though dated by today's standards, the "ladies' entrance" was once a common feature of American taverns. These secondary doorways were intended to help women circumvent the coarser elements of the typical barroom, where female customers rarely set foot. An afterthought then, the concept seems antiquated and patronizing in 2016.

Yet Jezabel Careaga, 34, has never considered ditching the marker hanging on the 26th Street side of her eponymous Fitler Square cafe, even if it causes a little confusion. "[Female] customers have asked, 'Can we only come in through this door?' " she says with a laugh. "It's historic. That's why we leave it up there."

The days of yore to which Careaga refers have little to do with her personal history - her ladies' entrance is a relic of the space's years as an Irish pub, an establishment that closed nearly two decades before she arrived in America from Argentina. But the sign turned out to be prescient in a different way.

It was the women in Careaga's family who taught her traditional Argentine cooking, but who also inspired her to embrace her heritage and widen her ambitions in an untraditional way.

Careaga grew up in Palpalá, just outside San Salvador, capital of the northwestern province of Jujuy. Everyone in her family cooked - mom Aurelia, a homemaker; dad Raul, a steelworker; her three younger siblings. "I wasn't the average kid," she says. "I was always trying to hang out in the kitchen. . . . I never liked the books; I wanted to come home and bake."

From her mother and grandmother, Careaga picked up the building blocks of Argentine cuisine: the painstaking process behind alfajores, shortbread cookies rolled in coconut and filled with dulce de leche; fresh pastas rolled out by hand; empanadas baked in the brick-lined oven her grandfather built in the backyard. But Careaga learned most at the elbow of her paternal grandmother, Julia, whom she lovingly describes as "the most amazing housewife you will ever find."

Though she admired the talents of her mom and grandmom, Careaga wanted more for herself. She studied hotel management in Cordoba, then worked as a hotel reservation specialist while earning an MBA from Universidad Siglo XXI. But all the while, she had a dream: to move to America and open a business of her own.

Her first step was landing a job at a Loews hotel in Miami, the ideal transitional city for a young professional whose first language is Spanish. There, she met Mark DeCoatsworth, a business traveler at the hotel who told her about a vacant property he owned that he was hoping to fill at 26th and Pine in Philadelphia. Careaga, who had already worked up a business plan, jumped at the opportunity. She headed north to Philly to launch Gavin's Cafe in 2010.

The original menu included empanadas but was more American-centric, featuring bagel sandwiches and French toast. The name was an homage to a bar DeCoatsworth's family once operated in the area. "When we opened, it was a completely different concept," says Careaga.

She formally renamed and relaunched the business as Jezabel's this month, overhauling the menu to highlight what she, and her people, do best.

"There's this idea that [Argentina is] an extension of Central America, and we're not. The first time I had rice and beans, I was 27 years old," says Careaga. She hopes to change the perception that all Latin cuisines are homogenous.

A number of dishes are still in development, but there are staples you'll be able to find on the counter daily at Careaga's sunny cafe. Her distinctive empanadas, which come filled with the classic ground beef, plus options such as spinach and mushroom and ham and cheese, are smaller and lighter than their Mexican counterparts. Sweets such as her alfajores join facturas, hourglass-shaped confections with dueling fillings of quince paste and egg custard; and medialunas, croissantlike pastries that sometimes come filled with ribbons of chocolate.

The Argentine selections extend beyond baked goods, too, in the form of simple sandwiches of roasted vacio, a specific cut of flank steak; she's also scratch-making classic chimichurri and llajwa, a spicy condiment common on northwest Argentine tables.

And the changes seem to be resonating. In the earliest days of Gavin's, Careaga would be excited if she sold 20 empanadas a day. Now, she preps and bakes a minimum of 200 every morning - a sign that times have changed to catch up with the high expectations she's set for herself and her business. She is now shopping for a second location.

Careaga, who is single, has embraced the traditions of her mother and grandmother but taken a path all her own: "I want to be independent," she says. "I don't want to wait for a husband to come and put a nail in the wall to hang a frame. I want to do it myself."