Today we’d like to introduce you to Tassili’s Raw Reality.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
This has been a lifelong journey to self-discovery. It’s what I call selfless being, so full of love for myself that I can love others from the overflow. This is because I have been able to tap into my life’s purpose and actually be about it. As an artist of life, I adopted the attitude that everything in life is or can be approached as an art at a very early age. This has allowed me to excel in the things that I’ve done for a living in my life. Food as Art became a reality for me when I was facing a health challenge back in 2008. I was beginning to experience the onset of arthritis at the time and found that I was consuming too many starches. I had become a stargetarian LOL! In any case, I found that not eating starch for a whole week took away all the pain and stiffness and that I was not eating enough fresh fruits and vegetables or drinking enough water. So, I committed to a raw food lifestyle for a year just to see if it was all that it was purported to be and I found that after doing it for about a month that I felt so good. I never wanted to go back to eating predominantly cooked food; so I started out 90 as a 98% raw food or raw foodie. Now I would say I’m about 90% because I do still enjoy some cooked foods, my business grew out of that. I had to create foods for myself to eat and enjoy and I began sharing it with others.
A friend of mine asked me to create a raw food well to help her create a raw food component in the West end called PAAS (p a a s) which means peace and I was able to really find out that people really appreciated my food it was not something that I made up or anything like that they really chose my food even over my friend’s food and her food was good it’s just that they wanted mine more. So I actually ended up losing that friendship behind that energy of I guess needless competition you could say because I don’t think losing a friendship is worthy. I mean it’s worth that you know but it happened, in any case, it needed to happen because I was able to then go on and answer the call literally that people wanted my food. I was in three other locations also within the West end of Atlanta before I actually got my own brick-and-mortar. I just recently purchased it after 12 years. I am very thankful for this opportunity to serve people using food as medicine deliciously. So you know my goal is to feed people mentally by providing education to assist them and cultivating themselves emotionally / a good character. By having the I am Ascension Temple of love, which is a yoga and meditation center and to be able to provide balance in the vegan world by being co-owner of UniTea and coffee it’s a vegan breakfast spot also in the West end and you know having these opportunities to actually do work for the people is great!
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
LOL! haha, you got jokes. It has been a smooth road, hmm… Well, no because I knew nothing about being a business owner I’ve been self-employed all my adult life. Being a business owner is like going to a foreign country and knowing nothing about the language the culture or anything. Just knowing that people eat, sleep, and go to the bathroom and yeah they make love, but other than that nothing about it is well. That’s what it was like for me becoming a business owner while I was able to manage to handle the food operations, I was horrible with the administrative things. My business has suffered greatly because that was not a strength of mine and not only was it not a strength, I didn’t know what I didn’t know. I hired people to help me to do it and they took advantage of my ignorance. What can I say? You got to inspect what you expect. I found in 2020 at the beginning of covid that my company was being embezzled for $400,000 and it was all of my upper-level management. It was a shock and surprise as I trusted these people with my life and the lives of all of our team members that worked at the restaurant at the time. Justice will prevail and I have learned a very valuable lesson. I did learn to put things in place that will prevent it from ever happening again.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
What I’m most known for is having food that we use as medicine deliciously. People love our wraps and our kale and entrees in general. What am I most proud of, my successful business and the fact that it is supported by the community and essentially run by the community too. There is a dynamic here of collective work and responsibility along with Cooperative economics. People really wholeheartedly participate to the success of the company. It is the answer to our ancestor’s prayers. What separates me from the others, is my uniqueness and extraordinary product and my ability to generate the love I have for humanity in my heart through the food. My name is synonymous with integrity.
We love surprises, fun facts and unexpected stories. Is there something you can share that might surprise us?
I used to be shy.
Contact Info:
- Website: TassilisRaw.com
- Instagram: @tassilisraw
- Facebook: #tassilusraw
Image Credits
Steffanie Haggins studiosteffanie@gmail.com
