Fabiola Padilla talks about how Bekeb, the bar that has become her life project, came about and has evolved.
Published January 10, 2024
Fabiola Padilla imagined Bekeb before it materialized. A native of San Miguel Alto, in the Altos de Jalisco, she studied law in León, Guanajuato, although she discovered early on that her passion was in bars.
“I studied for a degree, gave my degree to my father and then, at the age of 21, I went to New York to do an internship at the UN. Soon I discovered that this wasn’t my thing, so I started working as a barback in a place that was in Downing Street, in the West Village,” says this talented Mexican mixologist and entrepreneur.
For several months he devoted himself to the most rudimentary tasks: making juice, taking care of ice, raising and lowering boxes; but later, thanks to his perseverance, he learned the craft of bartending empirically: “For me it’s an art, it’s about working and doing it with cool people, being like a sponge and absorbing everything you can from all the people, as well as studying and researching on your own,” he says. At the age of 23, he knew he wanted a bar. “It took me seven years to do it: working five or six days a week with 10- to 12-hour shifts,” says Fabiola.
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