Business

Snapshot: Founder of Taco Tonto's Steps Down

Maureen Gartland started popular eatery inside Kent bar

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Maureen "Mo" Gartland stands outside the business she founded in the late 1980s with her son, Liam. Gartland turned over the keys to new owners this week. Brad Bolton

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Maureen "Mo" Gartland stands outside the business she founded in the late 1980s with her son, Liam. Gartland turned over the keys to new owners this week.

Credit Brad Bolton

Maureen "Mo" Gartland stands outside the business she founded in the late 1980s. Gartland turned over the keys to new owners this week.

Credit Brad Bolton

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Credit Matt Fredmonsky http://o4.aolcdn.com/dims-shared/dims3/PATCH/resize/273x203/http://hss-prod.hss.aol.com/hss/storage/patch/5c02bd7f7c9e218cb403478a8d9c78ec http://o2.aolcdn.com/hss/storage/patch/b782922781451f69594ed07afacc9fc7

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After more than 20 years, Maureen Gartland is saying goodbye to the taco business.

Gartland, founder of Taco Tonto's, turned over the keys this week to the popular downtown Kent lunch spot after founding it inside a Kent bar in the late 1980s. She's turning the keys over to Kevin and Emily Yohn and John and Jill Crino. Kevin Yohn has been a long time employee at the restaurant.

Gartland was kind enough to provide the history about her entrepreneurial endeavor selling burritos that blossomed into a full-service restaurant. You can read it by clicking on the file attached to this story.

Related Topics: Maureen Gartland and Taco Tonto's

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Chris Dimple

8:29 am on Friday, March 2, 2012

Why wasn't Taco Tonto (Mike Miller) even mentioned in this?

JR

9:10 am on Friday, March 2, 2012

Becky, I'm sure your cats don't mean to be argumentative. Maybe they have their own problems to deal with.

Becky Thatcher

9:18 am on Friday, March 2, 2012

HI JR: Just saw on another site that we can't use aliases or means of masking our identity in our registration, so I'm deleting my comments here and I plan to update myt profile or delete the account - - sorry about that! I don't think that was there when I first registered a while back.

Mike Miller

9:13 am on Friday, March 2, 2012

We are all proud of Maureen and the job she has done mixing good business with good food. I am sure Janice Solek-Tefft and all the subsequent burrito ladies agree and wish the new owners the best of luck. I wonder where this operation stands in the list of longest running, mostly continuous, food operations (1972/1973) in Kent?

Mary Bilderback

4:00 am on Thursday, September 20, 2012

Michael Miller, if you are the Tonto I know, I have a picture of you from 1967 and I would love to show it to you.
my nickname you gave me was the "Queen of JB's", in fact you said I was the new queen of JB's, instead of this other girl.
would love to hear from you.
mary

Mike Beder

11:10 am on Friday, March 2, 2012

Good luck, Kevin!

Brian and Robin Wood

5:08 pm on Sunday, March 4, 2012

Maureen, we used to live in Kent and ate at Toco Taontos in all the various venues it was in over the years. Now when we come back to Ohio from Oregon, we always stop by for a delicious meal. Sometimes we buy a dozen or more "el biggos" and some hot sauce to take back to Oregon. Great food !!!