Tasty Mexican cuisine since 1904.
During the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, Charles O. Taylor worked at the Mexican National Exposition, where he learned to prepare and enjoy many authentic Mexican dishes.
Upon returning home to Carlinville, Illinois, he came to the aid of a Mexican stranger. To repay the kindness, the stranger taught Mr. Taylor how to make carne y frijoles, just as his mother had taught him in old Mexico. That recipe became the foundation for Taylor’s Mexican chili with beans.
Ecstatic with the new dish, Mr. Taylor opened a small chili parlor in the fall of 1904 on West Main Street. After several expansions, a canning operation began in the 1930s. Through four generations, the Taylor family had overseen every aspect of the operation, until the recipe was passed on to local Carlinville natives.
The cannery’s arrival happened to coincide with the heyday of the Mother Road. Route 66 was barely a decade old, and Taylor’s cans began turning up on the shelves of grocers and roadside stops along the corridor — Staunton, Hamel, Edwardsville, Springfield — a staple in the pantries of travelers and locals alike. The Mother Road has shifted in the decades since, but our cans still ride the same routes.
Charles O. Taylor
In 1904 Mr. Taylor made a solemn promise:
“Only the finest ingredients will be used in any product with my name on it.”
To this day we have kept his promise. We only use 100% USDA choice beef in our gourmet chili with beans. We never use binders or fillers. After procuring the finest spices available, we simmer them with the beef in small batches and pack the special sauce in a container separate from our premium red beans — keeping the rich, old-fashioned flavor of the sauce and the beans fresh and distinct.
The recipe and the standard were carried forward by his sons, grandsons, and great-grandsons — four generations in all — and have since passed to local Carlinville hands. The cans are still packed the same way, on the same street.
The same recipe, hand-packed in small batches.
Our packaging method keeps the sauce’s rich, old-fashioned flavor and the beans fresh and distinct. Every 21-ounce can is hand-packed in Carlinville and shipped in cases of 6, 12, or 24.
A taste you’ve been missing.
Serve Taylor’s Mexican Chili with unsalted crackers and you can enjoy the flavor that Mr. Taylor created in 1904. Pick up a can of Taylor’s Mexican Chili today, or visit us in person at 116 S West St.
Carried forward on West Street.
From a small parlor on West Main Street to a national mail-order cannery, the recipe — and the standard — has not changed, whoever’s wearing the apron.