No matter the obstacles or challenges, she takes risks, puts in her body and moves forward. Rachel Rodrigo She is a doer. Friendly, pleasant, elegant, she makes herself noticed, even without intending to. Catechist, founder of a school, theater producer, gastronomic entrepreneur, her story is the reflection of her enthusiasm.
“I consider myself a fighter, a worker, an altruist because I did the things I undertook not thinking about the economy, but about the good that all this could bring to others and God returned it to me in spades,” says the owner today. from the restaurant The Stumble (Callao 248), the bookstore Classic and Modern (Callao 892) and the concert restaurant Dace (Callao 435).
News: Has religion always accompanied you?
Raquel Rodrigo: It was instilled in me at school. Since I was a child I was very prayerful. I can’t miss mass, I feel bad if I don’t go, I go on Sundays and holy days of obligation, and every day I pray the entire rosary. I am also a devotee of Saint Rita of Casia and when I need something I ask Virginia Gamba, an extraordinary woman, now deceased, who inspired me to found the school that bears her name and for whom I made a request for canonization in the bishopric of Morón , because there are accredited miracles performed by her.
News: You started out as a catechist
Rodrigo: When I finished high school at Nuestra Señora del Buen Viaje, where Virginia was rector, she called me to be a catechist at the school. At 18 he was already teaching. Later, in parallel, I worked as an administrator in the Bishopric of Morón with Monsignor Laguna. A few years later the bishop sent me to Nuestra Señora de Luján school to reorganize an administrative issue and I am still there. In that primary school, in 1991, I founded the Virginia Gamba secondary school. I no longer teach and now I am only the legal representative of the school, as if I were the manager of the bishopric at his school.
News: From this life he passed into a completely different one. How did El Tropezón reopen?
Rodrigo: I always valued Buenos Aires, its history, its buildings. My husband and I bought the parking lot at Callao 260 and with that garage came a commercial space. A month later I discovered a majolica in the premises where it says that the old El Tropezón restaurant, a meeting place for politicians and writers, used to operate there. When I saw it I said to myself: “I’m going to open it.” We had bought it without knowing it. That was in 2015. My family refused to let me get involved in that, because I had no idea. Then, my son enrolled me in a Gastronomic Administration course at Di Tella, which was very helpful to me. I finally opened it on September 12, 2017. It had been closed for 34 years and had been in business for 100 years. It still preserves the three bronze skylights and a beautiful cellar, with the vaults, limestone and castings intact from 100 years ago. It is a place with pure history. Gardel, Pelé, García Lorca, Lola Flores, Balbín, Monzón and Susana, among many others, passed through there.
News: His next challenge was to reopen Classic and Modern
Rodrigo: Another place of pure history, 85 years of existence. I didn’t understand how it could be closed. It is unique, it has a bookstore, cafeteria, gastronomy, art exhibitions and shows. There was a legal problem, the previous company had gone bankrupt and could not be rented or sold. I decided to meet the owner of the premises and unblock the judicial issue, and that’s how it happened. I bought everything inside, from the 9,000 books, Sandro’s piano and the coffee spoons, and rented the property to the owner and her family. They delivered it to me in October 2023 and in two months we built the new kitchen, the new bathrooms, we painted everything, we fixed the recoverable tables and chairs, and we left the place the same as it was, I didn’t even change the color of the paint. People who returned found the same thing. Because history must be respected and preserved. The books were not moth-eaten or musty, and we just had to tune the piano.
News: His last venture was Albur
Rodrigo: Yes, in Corrientes 1781 we have the other parking lot with my family. At one point, I saw a little sign, in Callao almost on the corner of Corrientes, that said that a basement was for sale. I went to see it and while walking through it I discovered that it had been a theater. I started to investigate and found out that it was the “35” theater. I contacted Virginia Lago because she had debuted there with Pygmalión at 17 years old. It was the birthplace of many actors, such as Perciavalle, Rodolfo Bebán and his father, Norberto Suárez and others.
News: It opened in November last year.
Rodrigo: November 26, 2024. Now it is a concert restaurant that operates in the same basement, with haute cuisine cuisine by Adrián Aguilera. In addition, we have tango, jazz and cabaret shows from Monday to Saturday, the latter is a show with a singer and three dancers choreographed by Gustavo Wons. The musical director is Damián Mahler and we have our own musicians. The enhancement and recreation of the place was in charge of the architect and set designer Alberto Negrín, today director of the Borges Cultural Center. The building is from 1920, the entrance floor is made of French marble, the elevator is the most beautiful with Slavonian oak and the restaurant has 104-year-old checkerboard floors.
News: Additionally, she is a theater producer
Rodrigo: I started in 2000 making minor productions and in 2004 I started producing Carmen Flores and produced her until she retired in 2019. When Leonardo Cifelli called me to produce together, we made “Hello Dolly” with Ángel Mahler at the Ópera, but on the 15th March 2020 we had to lift the work due to the pandemic. It is pending there, at some point we will raise it again. That was my last production.
News: How did your friendship with Lola Flores arise?
Rodrigo: It was magnificent. I worked with Monsignor Laguna and he was a friend of Lola. When she performed at the Opera in 1990 we went to see her with the bishop, my husband and Father Santiago Olivera, who today is the military bishop. We went to greet her in the dressing room and it was a matter of skin, I told her that when I was a girl, in my house, the only thing that was heard was the tango and Lola Flores. Then we followed her to another show in San Nicolás and there she invited me to a dinner at Fechoría, where they gave her the gold record. There he gave me his card and told me that the day I went to Spain I should stay at his house. The kid’s dream.
News: that was fulfilled
Rodrigo: Yes, when I went to Madrid with my husband six months later, I called her and she invited us to stay at her house. We went there and from ’91 until she died I went to visit her every year and we became friends. That’s how I met his sister Carmen. In ’95, Lola invited me to the April Fair in Seville, but she got sick and couldn’t go. Fifteen days later he died. My dad lent me the money to travel and go to the funeral. When I arrived at the wake there was a crowd, I got into the middle of the people with my passport and ticket in hand, so they could see that I was coming from Argentina for a day and, finally, a security officer let me through.
News: And you were the last to greet her
Rodrigo: When I entered they had just closed the coffin, but Carmen asked that they open it for me and I was able to give her a kiss on the forehead and the blessing. I was the last to greet her and then continued with the procession. The next day, before going to the airport, I went back through the cemetery and the singing of the gypsies, who had stayed all night, took me to where Lola was and there I met Carmen. A few years later I started producing it.
News: What was Lola like on a personal level?
Rodrigo: A simple woman appeared with a clip on her head, wearing slippers, relaxed. After eating we would ask him to recite and he would immediately recite or sing. She was immense, charitable, generous, always there for her friends. Nothing was believed, although everything could be believed, because there was no artist like her in Spain. When she got ready she was a pharaoh. She did her own hair and makeup, drew her dresses and was a painter, too.
News: What is your family like? Do they participate in your ventures?
Rodrigo: I have been married for 43 years to a wonderful man who is always by my side for everything. His name is Luis and he is a businessman, and we have three children, Carolina, Ezequiel and Santiago, and a grandson, Emilio. No, my family does not participate in these ventures.
News: The phrase “It can” fits perfectly
Rodrigo: Yes, but it should not be done only for one’s own benefit but for the benefit of others. I work 14 hours a day and everything I do comes from my soul. I get up at five in the morning and at a quarter to seven I’m already in El Tropezón and then I go to Albur and so on until nightfall. But it’s not just me, my right hand Ayelén Coto also gets up at five and her father who works in the garages and the cook who comes from Berazategui. And I learn many things from my collaborators. Today my challenge is that these places remain over time, that they never close again and that they continue to be places that give pleasure.
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