People who love really good, fresh food and local visual artists have a special place in their heart for The Tomato Head and Mahasti Vafaie. Since 1990, Mahasti was a farm to table Medici, who, while offering fresh-local-ingredients, made-from-scratch cuisine at her Market Square restaurant, also turned her walls into an art gallery to exhibit local artists. Amy Campbell, one of those artists, has been a big fan of dining at The Tomato Head for decades. She caught up with Mahasti one afternoon to paint with broad strokes her 35 years creating a business–and a close-knit community–on Market Square.
How did you decide to open a restaurant in Knoxville?
I was down in New Orleans with my mom on vacation. In a restaurant bathroom there was a display of an article about the lady who owned it. Right then and there I decided I would come back to Knoxville and open a restaurant. It wasn't like a long-term plan or vision or goal that I've had all my life. I was just like, Yeah, that's what I'm gonna do!
Why Market Square in 1990?
I worked in restaurants since I was 16 to pay for college. I knew how much work it was, and I didn't really want to work that much! I had worked at Piccolo's on Union. We’d come down to Market Square, although we were a little afraid to go at night because it was kind of scary, to a little Greek restaurant, Peroulas, to get food. So, I knew about Market Square and I knew that nothing happened at night and on weekends. Everybody went home. I thought, ‘Okay that's where I need to find a spot. I can work Monday through Friday 9 to 2 and not kill myself.’
I looked around Market Square and peeked in the windows of a building I could tell had been a restaurant. I saw a little old man, tapped on the window, and he let me in. He was Turkish and took a liking to me. The place had a pizza oven and I told him, ‘Take the pizza oven out and I'll rent it.’ He said, “I'm not taking the pizza oven out.’ So, he rented the building to me cheap for three months and I cleaned and painted. I had never worked the back of the house. My friend and chef, Freddie Booker, helped me design the menu, order my first round of ingredients, and showed me how to make dough. My first hire was David Chambers, who worked for a national pizza franchise, and taught me everything I know about pizza. We started with 12 tables and business was really slow. The only reason we actually had any customers was because Whittle Communication was here. They were the only people brave enough to come in here because it was a little bit ‘whack!” So, that's how it got started.
How did your business grow?
It was just me, David, Heidi and Rebecca, working weekdays for the first several months. A friend of ours, Jay Beasley, who had started working with us, said, ‘Let's open for dinner.’ I laughed and asked if he’d ever been around at night. And he said, ‘I'll put flyers up all over Fort Sanders and people will come.’ We did and for two or three Fridays, not a single soul showed up. Then one Friday night one couple came, Jo Anderton and Parham Cain, my first dinner customers. They showed up the next Friday with a group of friends and started helping build our dinner business by word of mouth and became really close friends. Our Friday nights got busy and then friends of Exit 65 The Band asked us to open on Saturday nights. So, we opened for dinner every Friday and then every other Saturday night with music. Gradually, we added every
Saturday, then Thursdays. And, now we're open all the time.
Then a second location west in the Gallery Shopping Center and Flour Head Bakery. Tell us about the bakery.
When I first opened, there were minimums with bread vendors that were a lot for us, so I started making our bread by hand, which was crazy. We made our pizza dough with our mixer, but for some reason I couldn’t figure out how to make our break in the mixer, so I took a class at the Culinary Institute to learn how to make bread with a mixer.
A bakery space on Middlebrook Pike opened up and we started baking. My initial idea was I would just bake for us. I had no plans to bake for anybody else. Then Stock and Barrel brought back a bun from Nashville and asked, ‘Can you make this bun?’ So, we started baking for them. Then Alamo Steakhouse asked if we could make their dinner rolls. Now we're a wholesale bakery!
I fell in love with baking at some point. It's my passion and I love it. It’s so much fun.
What makes the Tomato Head menu special?
We have pizza, obviously, salads, and sandwiches and everything's made in-house. Flour Head Bakery makes our pizza dough, bread, cookies, and pies. We have an amazing prep crew, so everything is made from scratch and fresh to order. We don't pre-make anything. From the start, I said we’re going to do substitutions, so you get to eat what you want the way you want it and it’ll be made fresh just for you.
You’ve employed so many young artsy people and supported local artists with exhibits.
Those are the people that I've always been attracted to. Initially, most everybody here was an art student. It’s still great, just different people. It was fun and such a pleasure. I don't have an artistic bone in my body, but I love and appreciate good art. And it really came out of not having any money to decorate … so I decided to get some art students to put art up on the walls. So that's how that came about. Some of the best shows I've seen have been here at Tomato Head.
For 35 years, you’ve demonstrated your gift for creating community.
We've had so many people meet here, have their first dates here, propose here. So many of our past employees are married and have children. It's really sweet.
It’s been a huge part of my life. I love being able to provide food for nonprofits like WDVX and WUOT and their guests and volunteers working the fundraisers. Especially, now they need our support more than ever, and we love doing it.
I feel really fortunate to have met so many of my customers. I don't think that’s typical. Everybody I know I've met through the restaurant. In the very early days, everybody in the dining room seemed to know each other. People would just get up and mingle and talk to each other, their kids would run around, and I got to know everybody. It was just a very special environment. We’ve had so many amazing employees come through here and so many amazing customers … people who all really care about what we do here.
Sidebar
A Perfect Partnership
Mahasti Vafaie and Scott Partin, Co-Owners, The Tomato Head
When I first opened, I had never balanced my checkbook. I didn't know how to reconcile a bank statement! I'm very much by the seat of my pants, gut feeling kind of person. My husband and co-owner, Scott, has an MBA, so his brain works in that way, so that’s his thing. We’re the perfect match.
When you’re making a sandwich, the bread is the centerpiece. All the other is secondary. So, your bread has to be good.