Taylor Mason didn't just want to sell tacos on Chicago's West Side — she wanted to build a place where she could be herself, and where other LGBTQ+ people could see themselves too. Mason, who was born and raised in North Lawndale, founded Taylor's Tacos in 2016, and the business now operates out of a kitchen at The Hatchery, 135 N. Kedzie Ave.
From Pepperdine Courts to Chicago Streets
Mason's path to tacos started far from Chicago. According to Block Club Chicago, she attended and graduated from Pepperdine University in California, where she was exposed to Los Angeles street taco culture. That experience planted the idea of bringing street tacos with Chicago-style flair back home, a concept she launched with her wife, Maya Mason, who co-owns the business with her.
The menu reflects that blend of influences. Taylor's Tacos offers extra juicy chicken tacos, steak, shrimp, sweet potato, seafood and vegetarian options, along with a secret salsa the company has developed over the years, per the same account. As Austin Weekly News reports, the food itself tells a story of two cultures meeting, with Mason describing her signature tacos as a combination of Mexican and soul food influences shaped by Chicago's West Side.
A Business Built and Rebuilt at The Hatchery
The Hatchery, a nonprofit food-business incubator, provides kitchen space and resources to help entrepreneurs grow their businesses, and it has been central to Taylor's Tacos at more than one point in the company's history. Mason previously worked at The Hatchery from 2019 through 2022, the outlet's report notes, before the business eventually opened a traditional retail location on Taylor Street in Little Italy in 2023.
That storefront didn't last. The report states that Taylor's Tacos closed its Taylor Street location and moved back into The Hatchery last year as catering became the company's primary focus — though the timeline of the business's moves in and out of the incubator isn't fully spelled out. The business now offers up delivery and pickup options, but its specialty remains catering, including food-truck catering, taco buffets and live taco preparation for events.
Representation as the Mission
For Mason, the business has always been about more than food. She said it was super important for her to create spaces where she could just be herself, according to the same report — a mission rooted in her own experience of not encountering openly gay people, or LGBTQ+ business owners and role models, until she reached college, where she also realized she was gay.
Mason now works to create safe spaces for LGBTQ+ community members and says quality service comes from the LGBTQ+ community, the outlet reports. Taylor's Tacos is identified as Black-owned, woman-owned and LGBTQ-owned, and Mason has said she wants to show that someone from the lesbian community can build something meaningful and successful, hoping to inspire future LGBTQ+ entrepreneurs along the way.
Growth Fueled by Grants and Mentorship
Beyond the incubator space, Taylor's Tacos has leaned on a network of small-business support programs to scale up. The company grew from making $7,000 a year to more than $400,000 in sales after adding an event-space business during the pandemic, according to the Polsky Center, which also reported that Mason took part in the fall 2021 cohort of its Small Business Growth Program.
Other support has come from across the city. Taylor and Maya Mason received a $10,000 grant and six months of development coaching through Grubhub's Community Fund and the Feed the Soul Foundation, per Eater Chicago. Mason connected with the Polsky Center after hearing about it through Allies for Community Business' Neighborhood Entrepreneurship Lab, a nine-month virtual accelerator, according to the Polsky Center.
Mason's team also won the right to use a Hatchery private kitchen for free during the incubator's first-ever pitch contest, an early boost documented by Austin Weekly News in an earlier report. Today, with the storefront chapter behind it and catering carrying the business forward, Taylor Mason continues to describe the venture in personal terms — building community, she has said, one taco at a time.
