Mahasti Vafaie: Restaurateur
Eating breakfast at a French pastry shop in New Orleans changed Mahasti
Vafaie's life.
The former petroleum engineer wanted a new career. The idea of opening her
own business came to her while vacationing with her mother in Louisiana.
"Your mind works in funny ways," Vafaie, a 1987 engineering sciences
graduate, says. "I wasn't planning on opening a restaurant."
But the French Quarter cafe gave her an idea.
"This is such a neat little place," she thought. "Knoxville
needs something like this."
Her idea became the Tomato Head Restaurant, a "healthy Italian"
eatery in downtown Knoxville's Market Square area. Of the memorable name,
Vafaie says she wanted "something cutesy, a catchy name people would
remember."
She says running a restaurant is similar to engineering.
"There's a lot of problem solving. Something always is going wrong,
from power outages to equipment failure to people not showing up for work."
When she started the business, she worked 100 hours a week; now she's down
to a more manageable 50.
Vafaie is a native of Iran. Her family emigrated to Murfreesboro, Tennessee,
16 years ago. Her father, like her, is a petroleum engineer.
Vafaie has been in a restaurant atmosphere since she began working at Shoney's
in Murfreesboro when she was 16. She paid her way through college waiting
tables and later became assistant manager of Lord Lindsey, a Knoxville caterer.
There's never any extra money in the restaurant business, Vafaie says.
"Coolers go out and you have to buy a new one--we're in the process
of replacing equipment."
But just as heads of families sometimes struggle to make ends meet, Vafaie
juggles the finances for her business because, she says, "This is my
child."
Return to Re-Engineers
Return to Tennessee Alumnus, Summer 96