Margaret Ostas, a behind-the-scenes force as her husband built and opened restaurants across the Toledo area, died Thursday in her Lambertville home. She was 87.

She’d been in declining health for several years, her son Michael said.

Her husband, Stanley Ostas, 86, died May 28. They were known for El Matador, eventually operating five of the Mexican-themed restaurants, the Balkan Inn and, in downtown Toledo, the Wheel. 

“My dad did everything, one restaurant after another after another,” son Nicholas said. “He drew the blueprints — no loans — he built the buildings. His success and his legacy were unbelievable.”

Son Michael said: “They came from abject poverty, and they lived the American dream.”

Mrs. Ostas, formerly of South Toledo, on occasion came in on Saturdays to help greet diners. Out of the spotlight, she kept track of paperwork and accounts and other business details.

“From the first day, she was counting the money, keeping the books. She was the comptroller,” son Michael said. 

She accompanied her husband to social functions as he won leadership roles in local and state restaurant associations. 

But she largely stayed home, where she cared for their sons — “and kept us in line,” son Nicholas said. “She was strict. She knew what we had to do to make it and succeed in life. She knew how we had to follow up doing the right thing being in the public’s eye, because we were in the public’s eye.

“She wanted the best for all of us. Those were her ambitions,” son Nicholas said.

Mrs. Ostas had some thoughts on keys to a successful marriage. 

“Compromise. Give and take. Talk it out and come to an understanding and meet halfway,” she said in 1997, sharing her experience with Mary Alice Powell in The Blade. 

“You have to sit down and ask, ‘How do you feel about it? What would you like to do?’” Mrs. Ostas said.

She determined that the family should eat together at home, and her husband agreed — even with growing sons and busy restaurants.

“But we always ate supper between 5 and 6 o’clock,” Mrs. Ostas said in 1997. “And we always ate a big dinner together on Sunday...We planned it that way and I liked it that way.”

Several years earlier, she reflected that vegetables at the Ostas dinner table represented her native Macedonia in modern-day Greece.

“I have always cooked lots of vegetables. The boys like them and now their children do, too,” she told Miss Powell in 1994. “This year the garden looks like a jungle,” she said, referring to the bountiful zucchini plants, cucumbers, eggplant, hot and sweet peppers, summer squash, tomatoes, onions.

A trip to visit relatives in Greece was imminent then, and she expected fare similar to the dishes her mother taught her to cook.

“They are down-home cooks who make stuffed peppers, stuffed grape leaves, limas, and tomatoes, foods like that,” Mrs. Ostas said. “But the diet of the younger generation in Greece has become Americanized. They think it’s prestige to have steak and french fries. They’ve gotten away from our kind of food, and it’s very disappointing to us.”

Mrs. Ostas and her husband were longtime members of St. George Orthodox Cathedral, where he directed the choir. Food production for church bake sales and other events were among her duties in St. Anna’s Guild at St. George.

“She went over and above for the ethnic festivals,” son Nicholas said.

She was born Nov. 19, 1933, in Macedonia to Slava and Daniel Zissoff. She was a child when the family emigrated to the United States. She grew up in East Toledo and was a 1951 graduate of Waite High School.

She was visiting relatives in Toronto when she met her husband, who had been orphaned in Macedonia and was in Canada courtesy of an uncle. They married in June, 1957, and moved to Toledo.

Surviving are her sons Michael, Stanley, Daniel, and Nicholas Ostas; eight grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.

The family will receive friends from 2-6 p.m. Sunday at St. George Orthodox Cathedral in Rossford, where funeral services will begin at 11 a.m. Monday. Arrangements are by the Castillo Funeral Home.

The family suggests tributes to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Memphis.

First Published September 12, 2021, 4:00 a.m.