A trip to a grocery store and McDonald’s changed Elena Jambrina’s life forever.
Jambrina, who was originally from Zamora, Spain, came to the United States after falling in love with an American serving in the Air Force in the town where she grew up. While Jambrina has enjoyed living in the United States, she said it was hard to adjust in the beginning because there seemed to be no other Spaniards or people like her living in the area.
Fast forward to the early 1980s, when Jambrina was grocery shopping with her daughter to kill time waiting for her husband to get off work. While Jambrina was shopping, she noticed a couple of others were giving her strange looks when they realized her ethnicity, making her uncomfortable and wanting to leave as soon as possible.
Unfortunately, there was only one checkout lane open that day, so she debated between standing in line or just forgoing the groceries altogether and waiting outside for her husband. However, while she was deciding, her luck quickly changed. Another Spanish couple walked up behind her in line and Jambrina introduced herself in Spanish. They instantly clicked.
“We instantly became friends. We exchanged phone numbers. They lived in Dyer, and I lived in Schererville at the time, so it was nice to have a couple Spaniards within a few miles of each other when you don't have anybody else,” Jambrina said.
They quickly became close, visiting each other’s houses and spending free time together when they could. Jambrina also noted she would always bake sweets for them whenever she visited, which they greatly appreciated.
Little did she know that by doing this, she was working on her career path years before it even began.
When the couple’s oldest child turned five, they invited Jambrina to his birthday party at a McDonald’s, but not just to celebrate. The couple had another friend attending who was opening up his own restaurant, and they wanted to introduce him to Jambrina. They thought she would be the perfect addition to his team given her extraordinary baking skills.
At the time, Jambrina also wasn’t aware that accepting the invite meant she was going to meet her future business partner, Carlos Rivero, inside of a McDonald’s at a children’s birthday party.
“My friend said, ‘Carlos, when you open your restaurant, you should hire Elena because she makes very good dessert,'” Jambrina said.
Rivero took their advice because, in September of 1985, Jambrina was hired to work part-time and make the cakes at his restaurant. Today, many know that restaurant as Don Quijote, a staple in the downtown Valpo scene.
Once Jambrina was hired at Don Quijote, it didn’t take long for her career to take off. Jambrina was the go-to person for desserts and was eventually asked by Rivero to become his business partner. Almost four decades later, Jambrina still works at the restaurant today.
“The rest is history. Now, 36 years later, we're still here at the restaurant cooking and trying to make people happy,” Jambrina said.
Working at the restaurant has fueled Jambrina’s passion for baking.
“Instead of having a sweet tooth, I have sweet teeth,” she said.
She mentioned she doesn’t have a particular dish she favors baking but instead said she can make the best version of anyone’s favorite treat.
“You know what I tell everybody when they tell me which one is your favorite? I keep comparing church with having kids and I ask them ‘Which one is your favorite? Which one do you love more?’” Jambrina said, indicating how it’s close to impossible to choose a dish she enjoys making the most.
She said there’s something good and healthy in all the dishes she makes, so everyone is bound to find something of her’s they’ll enjoy.
Along with a successful career, working at Don Quijote has also brought Jambrina many life-long friendships and connections with the community, even more so when she moved to Valparaiso to be closer to work.
When her daughter got married in Iowa, Jambrina was nervous about traveling so far with such a small group of people. However, that small group soon turned big when many of her friends made through Don Quijote heard about her travel worries.
“I had a group, I think it was about 12 or 13 couples that I know from the restaurant,” Jambrina said. “They were such good friends that they took three days off from their life and went to my daughter's wedding. Every time I think about it, it makes me humble. It makes me so happy to see that people will like us enough to drop their jobs and take off just to go to my daughter's wedding.”
Relationships like these are what keep Jambrina going, and in return, she wants to give that same feel-good sense of support and friendship back to the community that fueled her own passion. Don Quijote gives her the power to do just that.
The restaurant has offered grants and scholarships to students who are looking to study abroad in Spanish-speaking countries for the past 12 years. They also hold benefits for Hilltop Neighborhood, the VNA Nurses Association, and anywhere else they can lend a hand. In addition, later this month the restaurant will hold a back-pack program where they take donations of non-perishable food items, put them in backpacks, and give them to kids whose families struggle to put food on the table each night.
“It’s kind of like a circle. We treat you well and then you come back, and you help us help somebody else,” Jambrina said. “The best part about the job is seeing customers enjoying what I do.”
Looking back, Jambrina is amazed how being in the right place at the right time one day can have such an impact on the rest of one’s life.
“If you think about it, it's like God, so many things could have just gone a little differently that day If I was not waiting for my husband, if he was already there, if he took me home right away. I would have never met all these people. You know, so many different things could have gone so differently, but this all happened because I met my business partner in McDonald's over a burger at a kid's birthday party,” she said.