Amy May's: From four wheels to four walls

Amy May Taylor, center, is surrounded by her chefs and management team inside her new Findlay restaurant, Amy May’s Downtown. Taylor opened Findlay’s first food truck and has built a loyal following over the past several years. Her brick and mortar restaurant opened last week. (Provided photo) By LOU WILIN STAFF WRITER Amy May has expanded her Rockin’ Taco food truck business and crossed a border into a second territory: a downtown restaurant. Amy May’s Downtown, at 331 S. Main St., opened last Friday offering Mexican, Cuban and American entrees for in-house dining and carryout. The restaurant’s opening came seven weeks later than originally planned because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Much of the two months before the restaurant opening were a kind of nightmare for Amy May Taylor. “It’s actually kind of scary because I signed (a lease for the restaurant space) a week before the world shut down, so I had no idea that that was going to happen,” Taylor said. “I lost a lot of money with the catering business.” Short on cash, she suddenly could not afford the professional painters she had hired to spruce up the Main Street space. Taylor, her husband and five children ended up doing the paint job and making other improvements. Rough starts are nothing new for Taylor, 37. “I grew up pretty poor,” she said. She was raised in the Toledo area by a single father, who had a heart condition. “My mom left when we were little, so it was just me and my dad and my brother and my sister,” Taylor said. At 8 years old, Amy was making tacos for the family while standing on a chair in the kitchen. “We put almost everything that we ate into a tortilla,” she said. “But we were always happy. The fact that we were poor, the fact that my dad was sick — once we got around the table, we prayed and we ate dinner together — all that (lack) would disappear. I associated food with love and family and togetherness.” Taylor’s father died two months before her 12th birthday. She was soon a homeless teenager and on her own. By 19, she had three children. She had no high school diploma. She was still poor and worked odd jobs to get by. “Even when I was poor with my own children, we also put everything in a tortilla,” she said. “I mean, like, hot dogs — everything — all the time.” Throughout those early days, she noticed she could “create something out of nothing.” That gave her the dream of someday having a food truck. “I only ever wanted a food truck,” Taylor said. She saved up what little she could as a single mother over the years for that dream. Then about nine years ago she met her husband, Nick, who encouraged her to take the big step toward living her dream. To her $8,400 savings, she added a $20,000 loan and bought a truck and other supplies and equipment. She was on her way … kind of. Findlay never had a food truck before, so she had a hard time finding somebody willing to let her park on their property. “Everybody said ‘no,'” she said. Finally, someone said yes: Dietsch Bros. on West Main Cross Street. So Amy May’s Rockin’ Taco opened for business, and Taylor sat in her truck, and she waited for customers. “I would sit out there day after day. Sometimes five, six days a week, just praying that people would come try my food,” she said. Days of waiting became weeks, weeks of waiting became months, and then years. “Oh my gosh, maybe even all the way into the third year. Yes. I would pray all the way in to work every morning, pulling my truck along,” Taylor said. “And I would cry all the way home.” She prayed that people would notice her truck and try her food. When few did, she cried all the way home. “I was kind of drowning,” Taylor said. “Thankfully, I have a very supportive husband that kept us afloat during that time.” After a few years, more people came, and more people noticed. Then still more people came. It got so that other property owners were happy to have Amy May’s Rockin’ Tacos on site. Other food trucks started showing up in Findlay. But Amy May’s was the gold standard. In 2017, it was named the No. 1 Food Truck in the state by Ohio Magazine. “It’s grown into this really huge thing. I open at 11, and a line starts outside my truck most days at 10:30 in the morning,” Taylor said. She has overcome much disadvantage and adversity as she starts the next leg of in her journey, a brick and mortar restaurant. “Well, clearly by having three children by 19, the world already thinks that you’re going to fail,” Taylor said. “I was told by some of my own family members, ‘You’re not going to amount to much.'” “You know what, I have kids that I want to be proud of me. I want them to be proud of their mother,” she said. “I want to show them that no matter what life throws at you, or how hard your struggles might be, as long as you just keep pushing forward, you can do what you want.” “You really can,” Taylor said. “Sometimes you gotta get creative, but you can make it work if it’s something that’s really important to you.” Send an E-mail to Lou Wilin