We recently connected with Tino Amaya and have shared our conversation below.

Tino , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you share a customer success story with us?

We grew up in a poor area of ohio, my father was a migrant who barely had a 3rd grade migrant education. Growing up, we were never really taught to think about college or owning businesses. But when I was a small boy, my grandparents decided to open a small restaurant in the North End of Toledo. I worked there from 12 until I was 16 when I moved to Laredo, TX. But that experience of working and hustling with my grandparents taught me that anyone that puts their mind to it, could own a business. After attending culinary school and traveling the country, I came back to this area to pursue my dream of owning my own restaurant, combining the techniques I learned in school and on my travels, along with the skills i learned all those years ago in my grandmothers kitchen. Owning my own business, after coming from where we are from, has allowed me to be role model to several other young aspiring cooks/chefs that are from similar backgrounds. It’s just proof that the harder you work, the luckier you get.

Tino , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My culinary journey began at the age of 12 in the north end of Toledo at a small Mexican restaurant owned by my grandparents Juan and Hortencia Soto, called Los Amigos. I started like most cooks, in the dish area working with my grandfather, after school and on weekends. I worked with them until i was 15 and half, my immediate family moved to Laredo, TX for my dads work. While in Laredo, I found a job at a small Italian restaurant first, and then found a great job cooking, bartending, hosting, basically doing whatever they asked me to do. It was a Pub restaurant and I began cooking international cuisine. I never really wanted to be a chef, after graduating high school I actually started college to become an English teacher. I wasn’t a very good student and was placed on academic warning. It was around that time that the company i was working for offered me a culinary apprenticeship, I originally did because I didn’t feel like there were many other options for me. But while in the program I met my first real mentor and he changed my perspective on what professional cooking could be like. Upon graduation I was offered an immediate position traveling and opening restaurants. At this time, I was opening three different concepts with my concentration in the kitchen; we were opening an Italian concept, a Mexican concept and a Sports Pub concept. In any given week, I might have to travel between two different concepts, so being adaptable helped tremendously. After several years of traveling and opening these concepts, I was asked to open a restaurant in Michigan. I jumped at the opportunity as I had several family members and my parents had moved back to area with my fathers job. This was around 1996, I originally thought of asking my grandparents if I could help take over their restaurant, but it was already being run by other family members. So I started looking at opening my own. It took several years to save enough money to open my own, but in 2008 I finally 0penned my first restaurant with partners, in the Toledo/maumee area. In 2015 we bought the partners out and moved our restaurant to Monroe, MI and began expanding our brand. By 2019 our restaurant was recognized as one of the top 4 best Mexican restaurants in the entire state. I continue to hone our craft by taking trips to the area of Mexico where our family is from and doing our best to recreate those flavors here. We continue to build our brand by sponsoring community events, sporting teams, doing fund raisers to help eradicate homelessness, and of course, by supporting several other community minded activities.

How did you build your audience on social media?

Social media is the backbone of how we built our business. I have never really believed in print marketing, couponing or gimmicky things like Groupon. We learned early on that the best way to market our business was going to be on free platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and now TikTok. Our fan base on Facebook really is the foundation for how we grew so fast. But it is work and in the beginning I realized that the mix of humor and empathy worked best for us. We also realized that posting things that spoke less about us and more about our community, had a greater impact on how many times things were liked or shared, but it also transformed into immediate sales. People were just amazed that we would showcase other businesses on our business page in an attempt to boost their business, that they felt the need to support us for supporting others. So one bit of advice I give most new business owners, is don’t be afraid to showcase the businesses around you…trust me, your fans will rave about your product, because they will feel compelled to support you, because your are supporting everyone else.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

You always here stories about the first few years of any business barely making it, or being under capitalized. Our journey wasn’t that different. I always caution new business owners that once you run your financial projections for what you “think” it should take to fund your business; add another 20%. Early on we faced the challenge of being in the Ohio market that was completely over saturated with Mexican restaurants. Now our style is completely different, we utilize olive oil to cook with, never use animal products in our rice or beans; and have an extensive vegan/vegetarian menu. My philosophy has always been, true Mexican food, at its core, should be veg-centric and gluten free. But in startling in an area that is over saturated with old school northern style Mexican restaurants that utilize lard and chicken stock or bacon in their food, was a hard hurdle to get over. Our first 3 years were the worst. We would have great days and then long slow weeks. Our finances were starting to dry up and we contemplated closing. We were actually down to our last $1000 in the bank when I received a call to audition for television show. I didn’t make it on the show, but a local news station reached out to do an interview and wanted to know what was so unique about our food. After that aired, we started securing contracts with different Pharmaceutical representatives and some of the local businesses around us to provide luncheons and after hours catering. Little by little our restaurant began to grow, until we finally out grew our space and had to relocate to a much larger facility. We started with 5 employees and now have 47 including an in house pastry chef. It’s always humbling to think that we were able to work our way out of almost closing to becoming the staple we are now in our community. But we believed in our mission and truly believed if the community gave us a legitimate shot, they would see the difference.

Contact Info:

• Website: Www.amayasmexicangrill.com
• Instagram: @amayas_fresh_mexican
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/amayasfreshmexican/

Image Credits
Sasha Turner