This story was written in collaboration with L.A. TACO’s Media Lab class at USC, an incubator for emerging journalists aimed at forging a new path for the future of journalism.
Within a quiet Northridge strip mall, an Argentine cafe bustles with customers. Stepping inside, the space is small but inviting. The aroma of freshly baked empanadas and facturas—Argentine pastries—envelops you, and the friendliness of its staff will leave you with a broad smile on your face. This is Mate Conmigo, and the California Senate recognized it as a premier woman-owned small business on March 7.
Its signature drink, however, is not actually coffee.
Co-owner Gabriela Simoni decided to open the cafe in 2018 when she left her previous job in food service, looking to open her own “matería,” a cafe specifically for mate, a traditional South American drink made by brewing a tea from the leaves of the yerba mate plant. Mate has been enjoyed in the region for centuries, originally by the Indigenous Guaraní people and eventually spread by Jesuit missionaries. In time, the drink became a symbol of unity and togetherness since it is a common pastime in Argentina to meet up with friends to sip, pass, and share a communal cup of mate in rotation.
Though many countries in the region enjoy mate as part of their culture, each has a distinct way of enjoying it. Simoni’s mission is to teach her customers the Argentine way: a communal drink to be enjoyed while sitting down, as she would have while growing up in a small town near Córdoba, Argentina. Simoni and her son, Juan Carrasco, will happily give anyone who walks in a tutorial on mastering the drink.
“Mate itself is a very social drink,” Carrasco tells L.A. TACO. “We really wanted to instill that in the mission of our cafe, where you're sharing, we're just together in this world. We just want to continue that and just share, not only the method, but share a good time, a good experience.”
Mate is also caffeinated, serving as a missing link of sorts to caffeinated beverages; not as much as coffee, but more than most teas. This is what Carrasco says makes it the perfect drink to sit and study with, which many at Mate Conmigo do. The cafe has a number of tables—and outlets—for guests to sit and study or work.
Summer, a student at CalArts, said this is her regular spot for a study day—complete with a fruit mate to help her focus. She said she generally finds students from many nearby universities do the same.
“I found this place because I had a friend who would come and study,” she says. “I've just discovered that a lot of my friends also come here and study. That’s the big thing to do here.”
Summer said part of the reason the students keep coming back is Simoni, who will always playfully check on them to make sure they’re on task.
Indeed, the heart of Mate Conmigo is not its namesake drink, but Simoni and her family—both her sons and her staff. Customers, both online and in person, say the welcoming environment and attitudes keep them coming back for more. Each time a customer, new or old, enters the cafe, Simoni or Carrasco joyfully greets them and asks about their day. When I interviewed Simoni in the cafe, she would interrupt our chat each time a customer walked in, greeting them as if she had known them for years—which in some cases is true.
Mitch Hollis and his wife Monica have been going to Mate Conmigo for around four years, since before their daughter was born. He said they keep returning—each time to the same table—because Simoni and the cafe is always the same, hospitable self.
“I never come in here and feel like they're having a tough day,” Hollis says. “It also feels very natural. It's not like it's a manufactured feel. Gabby herself embodies ‘welcoming.’”
Mitch said he is not necessarily a frequent restaurant reviewer, but his experience at Mate Conmigo led him to leave a review on Yelp.
The cafe embodies family. You can see it in the interactions between staff and customers and in the decorations lining the walls. In one corner is a glass cabinet filled with objects—books, posters, toys, and drawings. The cash register is adorned with magnets from locations all around the world. A few drawings and newspaper clippings can be found on the walls. All of these items, Simoni said, have been given to her by returning customers.
In the spirit of family, Simoni and Carrasco both credit their attitudes to Simoni’s father, who owned a grocery store in Argentina and taught her to respect the people around her.
“We come from a really, like, humble, small town of really hard-working people. My grandpa had a little grocery store in their little town,” Carrasco said. “He always instilled enough, a lot of humility and just to like, share and to be good people ... because you lose that sometimes in this world.”
Simoni owes these decorations and the cafe’s success not to its products—which are themselves well worth return visits—but to the cafe’s goal of being a welcoming space for all its patrons.
“Customer service is the best thing to do,” Simoni said. “Not because I have to do it, but because we are like that. I am like that … I love to do this.”
That customer service is likely also part of what helped Mate Conmigo survive the COVID-19 pandemic at just one year old. Simoni said while the business did not receive any PPP loans or other government assistance, the stimulus checks sent to her regulars may have kept them afloat.
“We didn't receive anything from the government, but the people received,” she said. “[And] they came here. That's why they were still surviving,”
Simoni and Carrasco have been humbly appreciative of their loyal fanbase, a trait they both say they’ve inherited from Simoni’s father. Both said they had never asked customers for a review, and the attention has been incredibly meaningful to them.
“I'm very appreciative [of] people taking their time to speak nicely about my mom, because it means a lot to me that, you know, she's impacting this community deservingly,” Carrasco said. “She's a great person and she cares about people a lot … she deserves it.”
19257 Roscoe Blvd, Northridge, CA 91324
