The following is based on a conversation with Gaby Lindsey, co-owner of Viva! Argentine on Prince Avenue, that took place back in May of 2023. However, since then a few things have changed. Primarily, Gaby and Jesse Lindsey announced the permanent closure of Viva! on Tuesday, Aug. 15. Citing rising costs and a desire to spend more time with family, they closed the doors on their longtime restaurant after 11 years of business. Even so, there is still a place for sharing the stories of people who make Athens unique, and this story serves to honor a place that made everyone who happened across it feel like part of a family.
It’s 3 a.m., and while the tiny town of Athens sleeps, Gaby is hard at work. Anywhere from four to five days out of the week, Gaby gets to the restaurant in the very early morning to prepare her cupcakes.
“I’m not a baker, you know? I cook. So, the fact that I am a baker now is just hilarious to me,” Gaby said as she cored out the fresh-baked cupcakes to make room for cream filling.
Despite not seeing herself as a baker, Gaby’s cupcakes have become renowned around town for their inventive flavors and garnishes. Today’s batch is Oreo: chocolate cupcakes with a cream filling and chocolate icing, an Oreo cookie on top.
She’s wearing a rainbow paisley bandana on her head, a T-shirt of a local band and, as she swirls icing from a large piping bag onto the cupcakes, a big smile on her face.
Gaby came to Athens in 1989 for school, and ended up building a life. The community welcomed her with open arms, and her passion for cooking and serving others led her to working at Taco Stand, a longstanding, low-price taco restaurant that has been in business in Athens since 1977.
After 13 years at Taco Stand and much encouragement from coworkers and management, Gaby opened Viva! with her husband Jesse, whom she calls her “secret weapon.”
“They were all so supportive. They were like, ‘Gaby, this is your time.’ Like, ‘get in there and do it,’” she said of her former employers.
Taco Stand moved locations, leaving equipment and space for Gaby to grow what is now Viva!. Across the kitchen, soup is cooking in a pot given to Gaby by Taco Stand 11 years ago.
“Jesse, every Friday night growing up, he knew his parents were gonna be at the Taco Stand, and he could get a free meal off of them. So it’s really cool to be a part of that. So, to parlay it into my own thing was just, I mean, sometimes I really do pinch myself. I’m like, how did I get so lucky?”
Luck might have less to do with it for someone like Gaby, though. On the serving window of the kitchen is a small photo of her mother in a kitchen, wearing an apron, cooking at the stove. Her mother immigrated from Argentina to the United States when she was 16.
“That’s mommy, frying empanadas in her kitchen. I was like ‘this’ big,” Gaby said, holding her hand a bit above her waist, “and she would turn over a milk crate and I would help her roll the empanada dough out. It was just something I always did.”
Clearly, it runs in the family. Viva! serves empanadas, of course, with a wide range of fillings, as well as other Argentine-inspired dishes. Argentina boasts an extremely diverse geography, with its borders encompassing 3,180 miles of uninterrupted coastline, a portion of the Andes and both the highest and lowest points in the southern hemisphere. Such a region is sure to lead to interesting and diverse dishes, but it also means that it would be nearly impossible to replicate in a place like the Southern United States.
“[Argentinian food] is very fresh,” Gaby said. “It’s meat based. We’re known for all of our cattle, but in Athens, that’s not what we eat. We’re not all about red meat here, there are a lot of vegans and vegetarians.”
Jesse calls Viva!’s cuisine “Southern-Argentine fusion.”
“When my mom was still alive and people would ask where she was from, she’d say, ‘Argentina, you don’t get any more southern than Argentina,’ you know; to try to bring people in. Being an immigrant isn’t weird, you know, it’s not something unapproachable.”
Gaby reminisced on a trip she had taken with her mother to Argentina. Even in the winter, she said, lemons grew on the trees that were the size of softballs. “I definitely want to go back and take Alice,” she said of her young daughter.
She paused. “The big reason why we started this place is because we lost my mom,” she said after a while.
In 2005, Gaby’s mother was visiting her father in Argentina when she fell off a train. Unable to travel back to the United States for care due to her injuries, she was forced to accept care in Argentina. Complications during a procedure lead to her death.
“You know, I try to think of the positive,” Gaby said. “She always wanted to be home when she passed away. So she’s in a catacomb with her mother, her grandmother and her sister. So she’s where she wanted to end up. Maybe, uh, several decades too early, but I know she’s here with us. I can honor my mother who always wanted to have a restaurant of her own.”
Gaby carries on her mother’s memory by working charity events for local nonprofits, schools and organizations, but for her and Jesse, just serving people good food is enough.
“Jesse and I do the best we can for each other, for the people we love, for the people we see. We try to make everything better for everyone,” she said.
For many years most mornings started the same way: Gaby would wake up with a five-shot mocha and do it all over again.
“I remember when we first started to do this,” Gaby said, “I looked at Jesse and said ‘Now, you know we’re never going to be millionaires off this, but we’re going to live a satisfying life, because we’re going to help people.”
Even though the doors of Viva! are now closed, that is the spirit that will live on in people’s fond memories. Rising costs of rent and supplies in addition to labor issues are commonplace in the restaurant world, and many beloved local establishments have had to close or are in danger of closing. However, you may not have missed your last chance to dine at Viva! The restaurant’s lease isn’t up until November, and the Lindseys have warned to keep an eye on Viva!’s social media pages for potential pop-ups until then.
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