You might say Tanesha Trippett’s journey from bill collector to restaurant owner is overdue

Jacobs Restaurant, opening this weekend, is less than three blocks from 74th and Ogontz Avenues, but it took Tanesha Trippett decades to get there.

Trippett, 48, has lived her whole life in West Oak Lane, though as a girl she spent summers with her mother’s family in Savannah, Ga., where the Jacobs women prided themselves on their cooking. After graduation from Martin Luther King High School, Trippett went into the financial-services industry, becoming a bill collector and loan counselor.

Fifteen years in, she gave it all up.

“When I turned 35, I said, ‘I have to figure out what I need to do by the time I turn 40,’” she said. “So I said, ‘You know what? I’m going to go back to school.” She enrolled at the Art Institute of Philadelphia to become a chef, but her first externship — in 2012 with Aramark, the concessionaire at the Wells Fargo Center — was put on hold because of the NHL lockout. She started working at the center in 2013 during the NBA season.

After graduation, she worked at Drexel University for Sodexho, another events company, and enrolled in Wharton School’s small-business program for entrepreneurs.

This drive caught the eye of her former boss at the collection agency. “He said, ‘I can’t believe you really did what you said you were going to do,’” she said. “‘You’re leaving the business to start the career you really want.’”

He invited her to lunch and handed her a check for $25,000, making him her first investor. “He said, ‘I believe in you,’” she said.

In 2016, she started a food truck, calling it Brotherly Grub, and set up in front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, in the truck zone at LOVE Park, and at festivals. She also leased a cafe in Mount Airy and joined Les Dames d’Escoffier, the group that empowers women leaders in food, beverage, and hospitality.

Trippett said her catering and food-truck business were busy during the pandemic, though she eventually shuttered the cafe. In early January 2023, having heard that the local landmark Relish had closed, she submitted a bid for the space with OARC, the community development corporation that serves the “uptown” neighborhoods of Northwest Philadelphia.

It would be a big leap: Relish, which restaurateurs Robert and Benjamin Bynum Jr. ran for 14 years, was a sprawling venue with multiple dining rooms and a much larger kitchen.

Dozens of food operators applied to take over the location, according to Kimberly A. Lloyd, OARC’s president and chief executive. But she was impressed with Trippett’s plan, which called for a wide-ranging slate of community events, karaoke, Southern-style food (including terrific salmon cakes), and Sunday jazz brunches, while retaining much of Relish’s smart decor, and awarded her the lease.

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It was good timing, Trippett said. Just the day before, on account of mounting frustration with her kitchen, “I had decided I was going to give up,” she said.

Trippett still has the truck, though is currently out of commission following a breakdown, so for now, Trippett is putting everything into the restaurant.

This weekend’s grand opening — which is ticketed — is just a start. She plans to expand the menu and hours. Right now, brunch is served Friday to Sunday, and dinner is on from Wednesday to Sunday. Friday’s brunch will be $10 for senior citizens.

“That’s for my grandma — she used to love brunch,” Trippett said.