El Toro’s opens takeout, delivery location in Eastside Mall

FARMINGTON – Those hungry for more of El Toro’s cuisine can now find the Mexican hot spot nestled into the Eastside Mall of Farmington. After a busy summer of trucking around the western Maine area, the crew of El Toro will be hunkering down for the winter in their new, fully equipped kitchen, offering take-out and delivery to their recently established fan club.

“It’s hard to tell how the public perceives us,” co-founder Anne Holloway said. “We’re really in it all the time, running around, getting tomatoes from the farm for salsa, or making sure things are working right. It’s hard to see it from the outside.”

Holloway stands in the takeout window of their newest home–a tiny, wood-paneled hole in the wall outlined in chili pepper Christmas lights. The space is already overflowing with customers, despite it being only an hour after opening morning. The phone rings and it’s a big order- but nothing the husband/wife duo can’t handle.

Behind the wood-paneling is the shiny new kitchen, where El Toro is finally stretching out. Owner and self-declared “Master of Creations” Garnet Keim is slicing and dicing away, tortillas flying from grill to takeout boxes. He hands over a box of Adobo chicken tacos drizzled with a creamy, avocado-based sauce.

Keim is a native of Weld, graduating from Mt. Blue High School in 1995. He and Holloway met when they were both living in Seattle, Washington. It took several years of traveling the world, and a year of living in a “run down apartment on Munjoy Hill” in Portland, before the couple made the move back to Keim’s home town.

“Garnet started a business on Ebay selling snowmobile parts,” Holloway said. “There’s a huge market for snowmobile parts out there. Poor guy was out in the freezing cold, tearing the machines apart to ship the pieces all over the world. It’s a crazy story, but it all leads to El Toro,” she said.

With some funds to get started and a long-awaited dream of running a food truck, Keim began working on recipes and testing them out with friends and family. Items on the menu are all inspired by Keim and Holloway’s global gastronomical adventures; things like the Belize salsa–a habanero and carrot mixture adapted from “The Coconut Ladies” of Belize.

It took three years for the couple to get everything ready, from gutting and refurbishing a truck to establishing connections with local farms to source their ingredients. After their truck opening in May and long lines all summer, the business naturally fell into a more permanent location.

“The whole thing has just been this really great evolution,” Holloway said.

Takeout and delivery can be reached at 778-3888 on Tuesday-Sunday from 11 a.m.- 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. – 8 p.m. The Eastside Mall is located on the Farmington Falls Road.