{"id":102687,"date":"2023-04-13T07:59:45","date_gmt":"2023-04-13T12:59:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/?p=102687"},"modified":"2023-04-13T07:59:45","modified_gmt":"2023-04-13T12:59:45","slug":"meet-abigail-carbajal-the-woman-behind-pilsens-famed-carnitas-uruapan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/meet-abigail-carbajal-the-woman-behind-pilsens-famed-carnitas-uruapan\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet Abigail Carbajal, the woman behind Pilsen\u2019s famed Carnitas Uruapan"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Carolina Baldin
\n<\/strong>Medill Reports<\/em><\/p>\n

Editor’s note: All quotes by Abigail Carbajal were translated from Spanish by the reporter.<\/em><\/p>\n

Last fall, Abigail \u201cAbi\u201d Carbajal attended the premiere of the third season of Netflix\u2019s \u201cTaco Chronicles,\u201d which featured her family\u2019s restaurant, Carnitas Uruapan. Her appearance in the show was limited to one picture without captions, but she didn\u2019t care.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t like to show off,\u201d said\u00a0Carbajal, now in her 70s, who rarely participates in public events or interviews. After the show\u2019s release in November, the restaurant saw a boost in customers, and even today, people talk about it while waiting in line to pick up their food.<\/p>\n

She worked at the popular Pilsen eatery for more than 30 years, attending to the tables and hosting customers. As its name suggests, the place serves carnitas, a recipe from Michoac\u00e1n, Mexico, consisting of pork cooked slowly in its fat and served inside warm tortillas.\u00a0Pilsen is the original location of Carnitas Uruapan, which expanded to Gage Park in 2019 and will open a third restaurant in Little Village<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Her husband, Guero, always cooked, and Carnitas Uruapan became famous for its authenticity since he is from Michoac\u00e1n. In 2019, a\u00a0Chicago Tribune<\/a>\u00a0food critic called it the best place in Chicago for this taco style.<\/p>\n

Netflix featured it on the first episode of \u201cCross the Border,\u201d the third season of \u201cTaco Chronicles.\u201d The docuseries shows different taco recipes and restaurants from all over the U.S., and, in that episode, Carbajal\u2019s husband and son showed the recipe Guero developed and the right way to eat it: with tortillas and salsa.<\/p>\n

Carbajal never touched the meat. But her behind-the-scenes work was a secret ingredient in building the restaurant\u2019s name. \u201cChicago has good tacos because it has good people,\u201d the owner of Revolver Taco Lounge, Regino Rojas, said on the episode featuring Carnitas Uruapan.\u00a0But despite being part of the history behind a famous place and the good publicity the restaurant received after appearing on Netflix, Carbajal treats it as if it is no big deal.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was nothing like, \u2018Wow,\u2019\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Born in Michoac\u00e1n, on Mexico\u2019s Pacific coast, Carbajal initially worked as a seamstress. This gave her the flexibility to care for her widowed mother, who needed constant attention after spending six months at a hospital recovering from a car accident. Faith gave her the strength she needed. \u201cI always say that one can do anything with God\u2019s help,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

In January 1982, she got married in Mexico and, after two months, joined Guero in Chicago. He lived on the second floor of his carnitas restaurant. \u201cEver since we met, and he asked me to marry him, he told me that he needed a lot of support,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Soon she met her husband\u2019s friends and other business owners in the neighborhood. About two weeks after she arrived, she started helping at the restaurant and met more people. They had two servers for eight tables, and the place could get crowded on weekends, with long lines outside. Today, their original location, in Pilsen, still has long lines on weekends, but the tables are gone. They went takeout-only after COVID-19 hit.<\/p>\n

Sometimes, if she was the only server available, she would give customers the salsa, tortillas and soda, and charge them for their order. She also seated customers and washed the dishes if the men in the kitchen were too busy cleaning and dismantling whole pigs. \u201cShe was always there to see that everything was OK,\u201d said Yolanda Nu\u00f1ez, who owned a grocery store across the street and became very close to Carbajal. \u201cShe was family-oriented, and I think that\u2019s what I liked about her,\u201d said Nu\u00f1ez, her oldest friend.<\/p>\n

Nu\u00f1ez, 70, said Carnitas Uruapan felt like \u201ca family down to earth.\u201d Carbajal was a hard worker who was always available to serve people. \u201cShe was very helpful and just jumped in,\u201d Nu\u00f1ez said.<\/p>\n

Carbajal also cared for her son and the house. \u201cEverything was easier because we lived upstairs,\u201d she said. She would make dinner and do laundry after 6 p.m., when the restaurant closed.<\/p>\n

Five years ago, she stopped going to the restaurant regularly. Her son ran the business, and together they decided it was time for Carbajal and Guero to rest. They moved to a quieter street in the same neighborhood, where they don\u2019t hear the telephone ringing all day long with customers placing orders. Since then, her priority has been to help her husband, \u201cpaying attention to what he eats and making sure he is taken care of,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

On a recent Sunday afternoon, her living room had no books, magazines, chargers, bills or keys. But she kept her phone right beside her, occasionally checking to see when Guero, who had been at the restaurant, would arrive.<\/p>\n

After Netflix aired the episode featuring Carnitas Uruapan, Carbajal and the restaurant\u2019s staff noticed an increase in the number of clients.\u00a0People who watched it decided to try the tacos for the first time, and old customers returned.<\/p>\n

Josh Reighard, a customer for 10 years, said watching the show made him go to the restaurant the next morning to grab some carnitas.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe food is delicious,\u201d said Reighard, 42, who lives in the area. \u201cI\u2019ve been here many times before, but it (the show) reminded me that it\u2019s literally down the street from me.\u201d<\/p>\n

But for Carbajal, life continues as if nothing had changed.<\/p>\n

Carbajal never considered participating in the Netflix show. Besides going to the premiere in Pilsen, she watched it only two more times at home. \u201cI don\u2019t feel it has changed anything for me,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She visits the restaurant occasionally, walking there during the summer, donating unsold food to avoid waste and help those in need and greeting employees during the Christmas season. \u201cShe is just an extraordinary person,\u201d Nu\u00f1ez said.<\/p>\n

But when it comes to public appearances, she prefers to stay at home \u2014 like an ingredient that wants to remain a secret.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Carolina Baldin is a magazine graduate student at Medill. You can follow her on Twitter at <\/em>@RuizBaldin<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Carolina Baldin Medill Reports Editor’s note: All quotes by Abigail Carbajal were translated from Spanish by the reporter. Last fall, Abigail \u201cAbi\u201d Carbajal attended the premiere of the third season of Netflix\u2019s \u201cTaco Chronicles,\u201d which featured her family\u2019s restaurant, Carnitas Uruapan. Her appearance in the show was limited to one picture without captions, but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":878,"featured_media":102688,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,5251,5377],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-chicago","category-spring-2023"],"yoast_head":"\nMeet Abigail Carbajal, the woman behind Pilsen\u2019s famed Carnitas Uruapan - Medill Reports Chicago<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/meet-abigail-carbajal-the-woman-behind-pilsens-famed-carnitas-uruapan\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Meet Abigail Carbajal, the woman behind Pilsen\u2019s famed Carnitas Uruapan - Medill Reports Chicago\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Carolina Baldin Medill Reports Editor’s note: All quotes by Abigail Carbajal were translated from Spanish by the reporter. 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