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LITTLE ITALY — Don’t let the name fool you: Taylor’s Tacos is named for its owner, not the street it sits on.
West Sider Taylor Mason opened a brick-and-mortar shop for her catering business, Taylor’s Tacos, last month at 1512 W. Taylor St. in Little Italy.
Mason and her team sling soul-fusion tacos: authentic street-style tacos with soul flavor, she said.
The menu features four signature tacos — chicken, steak, sweet potato and crispy shrimp — with a rotating taco of the week, which can feature things like asparagus, bangin’ beef and slammin’ salmon.
Mason was going to open in a different spot, but the location fell through, she said.
That’s when she found the current spot on Taylor Street.
“Oh my, God, I felt like it was Heaven-sent,” she said. “You can feel it — you trust your instincts, trust your gut, and when we came in here, I said, ‘This is home. This is where we’re gonna build and grow.’ It’s just meant to be.”
Mason had been catering at bars, clubs and other events since 2016, but it was in 2018 when she and her wife made the business more of a priority, she said.
While playing basketball as a student at Pepperdine University, Mason said she was known as “team cook,” always whipping up food for folks.
“I just love how you can bring people together through food, and I super fell in love with tacos in L.A.,” said Mason, a Lawndale native. “That’s where the love started of the street taco vibe.”
After college, Mason moved home and worked with the family business for a bit before striking out of her own, she said.
Mason grew her knowledge of food through friends teaching her, taking cooking classes and traveling, she said.
“I’m all about being with the people, you know, bringing people together, and I just didn’t know that it would be through tacos,” she said. “We’re just so excited that we finally have the platform to showcase it in our own space.”
Mason credits the love and support of her customers for getting Taylor’s Tacos brick-and-mortar up and running. Community members gave over $50,000 through Honeycomb Credit, a platform to allow growing local businesses to raise funds through investors.
Alongside the Taylor’s Tacos restaurant, Mason said she’s still doing catering gigs and running a nonprofit called Tacos Create Community, where she organizes things like neighborhood cleanups — with tacos, of course.
Credit: Madison Savedra/Block Club ChicagoMason said she hopes running Taylor’s Tacos — which is a Black-, women- and lesbian-owned business — can inspire others who are interested in learning more about food or running a food-related business .
“I’m happy that I can be someone that can be like, ‘Hey, OK, this is what you need to do,’” she said. “We don’t take it lightly. We don’t take it for granted. And we’re just so grateful to be here.”
Mason said customers sometimes tell her they tried a new food, which they wouldn’t normally have eaten, in one of her tacos.
“That is the biggest compliment, that they trust the way we manipulate and work with food,” she said. “’It’s just all about giving a new experience.”
Taylor’s Tacos is open 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday.
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