The cook behind Joe Biden's favorite bagels is Argentine. Daniela Moreira grew up in her family's gastronomic business in Alta Gracia, Córdoba, and now she runs her own emporium in the capital city of the United States. Call Your Mother, her bagel shop, was chosen by the President for his first meal in the White House, and now it has 11 stores and 400 employees. The Argentine gene behind a successful business. In dialogue with LPO, this young Latina shares her dreams, her desire to start a business in Argentina and the secrets behind her successful bagels.
You came to the United States a long time ago to work as a babysitter and study English. Now you own 11 stores and have more than 400 employees. Are you an example that the American dream still exists?
My dad always asks me the same: Would you have achieved the same thing in Argentina? We'll never know. When talking about the American dream, I think that at the end of the day it was my dream, Daniela's dream. That was not always the same, it has been changing until now. What I am clear about is that this country helped me a lot, it offered me incredible opportunities and I knew how to take advantage of them and worked hard. I told my family that I would stay here a year. But that changed to two and then to three. A lot of doors were opened for me and I stayed. My first idea was to go to Europe. But here I got a scholarship to study at university and a job at what was the best restaurant in the world.
I can tell you that I always had my goals. I have well-defined ideals and objectives and I worked very hard to achieve them. I like to compare myself to horses with blinders, because that means they can only look ahead. This is me, I always look ahead.
Have you ever thought about going back?
Sometimes. I say it now and it sounds easy, right? But I have been on a rollercoaster of emotions since I arrived. The first year, I was an Au Pair and I had a student work visa that expired and I had to return. That's where my constant fight began to stay here and fulfill my dreams. Every time an obstacle appeared, I said: "This country doesn't want me, I'm going back to Argentina." I remember my dad telling me: "Be careful, if you leave, you won't belong anywhere. Once abroad, you will want to be in Argentina, and being in Argentina, you will want to be in the United States."
I left very young and I didn't leave angry either about politics or the economy. I left because I wanted to learn what they instilled in me: French food, I wanted to know the best restaurants, that at that time were abroad. Today it is different, Buenos Aires is a gastronomic capital and I want to be there too. I see they are doing incredible things there and I want to be part of it.
How did you start in the US gastronomic world?
I fell in love with Timber Pizza, my husband and partner's business when I met him. He had a mobile pizza oven that he took to the markets and that remembered me going camping with my family. I grew up in a campsite where my mum had a wood fired oven and she prepared pastry. I saw it and said "Oh, my God." He conquered my stomach. I told myself "I'm going to work with him, I'm going to keep the idea, I'm going to go back to the campsite and open a new business." That was my master plan, but well, I fell in love with the business, eventually I fell in love with him and here we are.
What would you like to do in Argentina?
I would love to open a subsidiary of Call your mother so that Argentine people know about bagels. I have not tasted a bagel until my husband told me let's open a store. First I said yes, and then I asked "Wait, what is a Bagel?". I remember I tried it and it was really easy to do. I made a lot and people tried them, they were all Latino, and they said: "Wow, delicious!". When my husband, who is Jewish, tasted it, he said: "This is bread with a hole." He grew up surrounded by bagels because he is Jewish and they were part of his culture. It was delicios for me, and I think Argentine people would love them, but of course it was not a traditional bagel. I love to see that they are becoming popular in Argentina now and I would like to be part of that movement.
"Los inmigrantes siguen llegando y la lucha no termina porque los retos todavÃa son monumentales"
Biden bought your bagels for his entire family the day he was sworn in as President and Call your mother exploded. Was it like a magic wand for the business?
It was a magic wand because suddenly people started talking about us. It also happened with the pizzeria. We appeared on the list of the 50 best restaurants in America by Bon Appetit magazine. To be honest, I dind't know that magazine. The next day, people were lining up. The most important thing is that all of these things are very good for business, because suddenly people are talking about your business. I think the most beautiful thing about all that was Argentina's reaction. It was really good, it connected me with Argentina again.
The peanut butter you sell comes from Argentina. What is the story behind it?
You asked me if I would like to do something in Argentina, and yes, we are already doing it. We have a peanut butter company called "One Trick Pony." We buy the peanuts in the Córdoba province and we process them in another Argentine province, Entre RÃos. Many people in Argentina don't know that peanuts are native to Argentina (Córdoba), it comes from my roots. It grew in my yard and I didn't know. It all started during the COVID pandemic, when there were many production problems here and we couldn't get peanut butter. I started to investigate and all the labels said that peanuts came from Argentina. So I suggested Andrew, my husband and partner, let's make our own peanut butter. But I wanted to do it there, in Argentina, because I wanted to create employment. I wanted my sister there to take care of the business and export it, and that's what we are doing.
What is it like to produce in Argentina given the economic context?
For us it was learning everything from scratch, because what we know is how to open restaurants. Now we have 11 Call your mother, we opened the last one in Denver, and we also have two Timber Pizza. With this we had to learn everything from scratch: about exports, about doing something in another country, and that is very difficult. I didn't study foreign trade or anything like that. But our goal was to create jobs there. So yes, it would be much easier for us to do it here. Directly import the bags of peanuts from Córdoba and produce the butter here. That's the easiest way, and that's why everyone does it that way.
It's a bet, I believe in Argentina. I think there are many young people doing incredible things and as I talk about it, I get excited. From here I see they are putting in so much effort, and I also see it is difficult everywhere. When people read this, they can say: "Of course, you are doing great, but it costs us a lot." Opening businesses is the same here, in Argentina or anywhere in the world. You have to deal with bureaucracy, everything is very difficult and sometimes people don't know it. Opening the first Call your mother took us a year, with rental costs, employees, we lost money every day. It was complicated.
What is it so special about Washington DC for you to choose it?
DC is the city I arrived in the United States. I came to work as an Au-Pair and the family who hired me lived here. I dind't know much about Washington DC, except that it was the US capital city. I wanted to travel the world. I wanted it since I was 14. Learn about different cultures, about gastronomy. And D.C. surprised me, because all embassies are here. The whole world is here, so if you want to learn from Ethiopia, you can, and from Argentina too. I started studying here in D.C., and I met people from all over the world. That blew my mind. I fell in love and built a community of people from all over the world. I fell in love in D.C., and I didn't find the same in New York City. I was 24 years old, and I could move anywhere in the country, but I had had my happiest time here and that's why I chose this city.
Do you think there is something from your city in Argentina, Alta Gracia, in your business?
I started working at my family's campsite "La Serranita" with my brothers at 15. We were kids, but we wanted to have our own money, so dad gave us the key of the grocery store. We had to learn to deal with suppliers, with broken things, with everything. That experience was key in my life. I learned, among other things, that I don't like to take things so seriously because work takes up half of our time. That's why I want my employees to have a good time and have fun, because that way they will want to come and work.
Also, the majority of our employees are Latino and that is a decision. We have a fairly well unified program and we are predisposed to diversity, and that occurs in Washington. There are people from all over the world. For us it's very important to create opportunities. They gave me millions of opportunities, so my goal in the company is to create the same opportunities for them, we offer English lessons to those who don't speak English, and Spanish lessons for those who don't speak Spanish, because it is a way to integrate people.
In the United States, inflation began to be a problem. Does it affect you?
Yes, it does. But I feel that we Argentines must be the most creative people in the world, because we grew up with that, we grew up adapting ourselves to the conditions. It's what every good entrepreneur needs. We always push forward and look for a thousand ways to continue moving forward. The American is not very used to that. Now that there is inflation here it's like the end of the world. There I come in and say well, this is what we are going to do: "We exchange the flour with the supplier, we negotiate the prices, etc." This is when we need to be more creative.
Although inflation is low compared to other places, it affected everything a lot. It affects costs, for example, and we don't want to increase prices. We always have almost the same prices, we changed them a year ago or so, but before that, we hadn't changed the prices in five years.
When I started at the pizzeria, Andrew left me in charge of the orders and gave me a list of places he shopped and their prices. The first thing I did was talk to the flour supplier and I lowered the price by half. When I told him, he couldn't believe it because he didn't think you could negotiate prices like that. Argentine common sense is something that makes a difference.
Translator: Bibiana Ruiz.
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