TRIALS &
TRIBULATIONS RESTAURANTEUR LOVES A CHALLENGE by LAURA MOORE photo by MEGAN DEITZ
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AMMY TILGHMAN knows more about challenges and heartache than most, but it hasn’t stopped her from moving forward and inspiring others along the way. In October, Tilghman opened Girls With Dough, a new pizza and pasta restaurant in the Riverlights community. “It is so exciting to watch it grow daily. I cannot wait to see how Girls With Dough will continue to grow,” Tilghman says. Shortly after opening the restaurant, Tilghman made the heart-wrenching decision to close her first Riverlights business, Social Mag-
DECEMBER 2021
nolia Cafe, a venture started in 2017 to honor her late father. “Closing Magnolia Social Cafe was honestly the hardest decision I’ve ever made. I made MSC everything I could had ever hoped for,” Tilghman says. “I opened the cafe in honor of my late father who committed suicide. He loved coffee and he passed that love down to me.” Tilghman’s decision to open Magnolia Social Cafe happened amid her own health crisis. Tilghman has a rare brain condition called Chiari malformation. She was very sick for two-and-a-half years and was continuously misdiagnosed. “I felt my life slipping away little by little every day, but once I was correctly diagnosed, I was so excited to have a name that was stealing my life and to know that I wasn’t crazy like how many doctors treated me like I was,” she says. Chiari malformation can cause over 151 different symptoms, and Tilghman had the majority of them. “I quickly learned that I had to be the voice that my body couldn’t be,” she says. “I had to demand to be heard; my body was screaming inside to help me, and I was trying so hard to do just that. Once I found out the name to the robber that was trying to steal my life, I had no idea that I was just beginning the real fight for my life.” Tilghman spent a total of five-and-a-half months in the hospital, not consecutively. She
