Tassili’s Raw Reality is Changing Atlanta’s Vegan Scene

The idea of eating a raw vegan diet may make you shudder. 

You may envision a sad salad or some bold new interpretation of beets, but Tassili Ma’at pictures a wrap bigger than your head. 

And that’s exactly what you can find at Tassili’s Raw Reality in Atlanta’s West End.

It has quickly become one of the hottest spots in town, with a daily line out the door full of customers, whether they’re raw vegans or unadulterated carnivores. In addition to those monstrous wraps, Tassili’s also serves hearty delights like Sweet Coconut Corn and Moroccan Couscous, flavorful snacks like Afrikan Carob Cake and Popolicious Herbal Popcorn, and rejuvenating refreshments like Aloe Juice and Imperial Kombucha.

So why do folks make the trek a few miles west of downtown to wait in line for foods and drinks devoid of meat, cheese, eggs, or anything else that has been cooked in any way? 

Take one look at the OG Wrap and you’ll see why.

This right here is unlike any vegan option you’ve ever had. Take a bite and you’ll feel like Dorothy walking into Oz, seeing the world in color for the first time. 

The kale is crunchy yet melts in your mouth. The dressing is packed with umami but has a beautiful heat level, right at the cusp of being too spicy but never passing that threshold. The avocado adds a mild creaminess and the tomatoes bring textural complexity as well as a subtle sweetness to counteract the spice. 

On top of all of that, however, this wrap simply makes you feel good. You know you’re eating fresh and locally-sourced ingredients. You know you’re eating something healthy. You know you’re eating a vegan dish that doesn’t try to replicate meat or dairy in any way. It’s a celebration of its components and a celebration of what makes food delicious.

There’s a concept in music called overtones. It’s an effect where every voice comes into such perfect harmony that you hear a new “note” that only exists because the other parts worked together so beautifully. Taking a bite of these wraps offers the closest thing to a gastronomical overtone. Each ingredient is tremendous, but it’s how they all work together that causes something unbelievable to emerge.

I obviously care deeply about this wrap and this place, so I wanted to learn more about Tassili’s Raw Reality directly from its founder and namesake.

Tassili greeted me with a “heart-to-heart” hug as we walked into the serene “I Am Ascension Temple of Love” (IAMATL), located above the restaurant, covered with beautiful pan-African art. She speaks with absolute confidence; she doesn’t presume to know everything, but she steadfastly believes what she says. 

She uses a lexicon full of unique terms: “was-band” for an ex-husband, “starch-atarian” for someone who eats too much starch, a “livet” instead of a diet, and others you’ll certainly pick up on.

We sat criss-cross on the floor of the part of the temple used as a yoga studio, meditation space, and, for the next ninety minutes, interview site. I first asked how she decided to adopt the raw vegan diet.

DISCLAIMER: Tassili is describing her own beliefs and life practices. Atlanta Eats is not authorized to offer any medical or nutritional advice, and Tassili herself acknowledges that her lifestyle works for her, but does not claim it will have the same results on everybody else. 

Going Vegan

Before we dive into Tassili’s own vegan journey, let’s make sure we fully understand both the vegan diet and (especially) the raw vegan diet. 

According to Healthline, a vegan diet avoids consuming all animal products, such as meat, eggs, and dairy.

A raw vegan diet includes all of those restrictions but with the added dimension that foods must be consumed raw or below 118℉. This substantially reduces the foods you can eat, so maintaining a raw vegan diet requires discipline and creativity to obtain the necessary nutrients you need to live a healthy life while actually enjoying your food. 

Tassili launched Tassili’s Raw Reality to do just that.

Why Tassili went raw vegan

Before going fully raw, Tassili was a practicing vegan. She remembers, “I became vegan in 1988 when I moved to Atlanta because my second ‘was-band’ was a Nazirite.” The vow of the Nazirite includes several strict laws, including abstaining from consuming grape products, refraining from cutting your hair, and avoiding touching any dead flesh. Hence the veganism.

After two decades of plant-based living, Tassili decided it was time for a change.

“I asked [a physician friend] why was I beginning to wake up with stiffness and soreness in my hands?” Part of this malady was undoubtedly due to her career of working with hair, which required doing a lot with her hands, but another cause emerged: Tassili was a “starch-atarian”.

Her daily diet tended to include items like granola with rice milk (both starches), vegan stir fry (with a starch base like rice or quinoa), veggie sandwiches (with starchy bread), and starchy vegetables like potatoes. She figured it was worth trying to cut starches out, but she also realized she “wasn’t eating enough fresh leafy greens or fruits. It was just all this dry brown food. Brown is great, but throw some green in, some yellow, some purple…”

After a month, she was seeing major results. “Not only did I have more energy, but I was naturally detoxing.” Plus, her thoughts were clearer and minor ailments like allergies weren’t bothering her as much. 

“This is my story,” she explains, “but don’t take my word for it. It might be different for you. [Go raw for a week] and see what happens to you. Maybe nothing…but maybe everything.”

Tassili is under no illusions that our readers are going to drop burgers, bagels, and brownies from their diets, but she has several pointers to live an incrementally more wholesome diet.

• Grow your own food. If you can’t do that…
• Support someone who has their own little garden. If you can’t do that…
• Go to a farmer’s market. If you can’t do that…
• Go to a health food store. If you can’t do that…
• Buy organic from the grocery store. If you can’t do that…
• Buy fresh produce. If you can’t do that…
• Buy frozen produce.

If you can’t do that, then just go to Tassili’s Raw Reality.

Opening Tassili’s

You don’t just become one of Atlanta Magazine’s 75 Best Restaurants overnight.

After committing to raw veganism in late 2007, she convinced her friend, the owner of a restaurant called Paas, to introduce a raw component to its menu. “So we had a raw food day,” she says, “and a lot of people I know in the community came, they supported, they enjoyed the food.” There was, however, one issue. “While my friend’s food was good, mine tasted better and people preferred mine over hers,” she says. “And so it ended a 20-year friendship because of professional jealousy. And I was like, ‘deuces, I’m out. I don’t even do food, I do hair.”

As soon as she left the food world, though, it came calling.

She recalls, “[people] would stop me at the grocery store, at the park, at a stoplight, and they’d say, ‘how can I get your food?’ So I started selling out of my home.”

While her famous wraps were not yet fully realized, she already had a killer kale concoction in her repertoire. She also made Karamu Couscous (a sweet mix of couscous, raisins, and berries), Sweet Coconut Corn (“like drinking sweet kernel corn right from a freshly-split coconut bowl cut straight from the tree”), and Mango Mushroom Stew. 

She initially ran an itinerant business, jumping around several rented locations in the West End area, until her current brick and mortar store became available for rent in late 2010. She was not alone in the building, however, sharing a roof with a hair salon as well as a halfway house for recovering drug addicts. 

Tassili had a feeling this was only a temporary arrangement. She recounts, “I told the owner I was going to buy the building and he was like, ‘yeah, okay’ and we just kept revisiting the conversation.” Within months, the halfway house left the building. Then the husband and wife who owned the hair salon broke up, and with their marriage, the business went too. 

Tassili’s prediction turned out to be correct; the building was all hers.

Now there was the matter of actually running the restaurant.

Mentorship

It takes a village to run a restaurant of any type, let alone a raw vegan one. Luckily, she had a legendary Atlanta restaurateur in her corner: Richard Thomas, founder of the immensely popular R. Thomas Deluxe Grill.

Before opening up his Buckhead restaurant (initially a hamburger joint, though it soon focused on healthier food with a sizable vegetarian menu) in 1985, he had previously been the first President of Operations at KFC as well as a Co-Founder of Bojangles. Because of his robust restaurant operations experience, he was a perfect mentor for a brand new restaurant owner like Tassili. 

“I wanted to know how to get things done,” she explains. “And he respected the fact that I was pulling myself up by the proverbial bootstraps…even though we had on sandals,” she says, breaking into a cackle.

Tassili reflects warmly on her experience with Thomas. “He always had his kitchen open to me where I could go and ask him questions. He’d show me different aspects of operation and give me pointers on what to do, and I’m just very thankful.”

“I started my business with $250,” she shares. “My dad matched it. And in 2017 we had a revenue of $2.5 million right here in the hood.”

What lies ahead

As impressive as Tassili’s growth has been lately, she has her sights set straight ahead.

For one, she’s looking into getting her products into the Atlanta airport.

And that’s only the beginning. “We’re looking forward to expanding the Raw Reality on a global level,” she proudly states. “We’ve been invited to be a part of the Beltline over at [the currently in-development] Pittsburgh Yards.”

But, as the proverbial mantra (and line from Spiderman) goes: with great power comes great responsibility. 

Making a difference in the community

Tassili recognizes how lucky she has been, and she feels an obligation to use her success to bring others in her community (both the West End and raw veganism) up.

“Food is culture and culture is food,” she says. So she finds it important to understand and pay tribute to “the culture that created the raw reality food, because it is distinctly American and distinctly African American and distinctly southern. I even say it’s the new soul food.”

Like many complex diets, raw veganism marries several different cuisines together into one beautiful union.

“Do I incorporate spices, like our Curried Plantains? Of course, that comes out of India so it has a little global vibration to it.” She continues, “The Moroccan Couscous…couscous is a Middle Eastern grain. And we use chilis from Central America. It’s a global vibration because I feel like the whole planet is our home.”

She expands on that thought: “We only have one place, so why can’t we work together to heal it, preserve it, and thrive on it as opposed to fighting each other for it?

This philosophy all starts with serving her immediate community of the West End, where her restaurant has spent its entire existence. 

“I want to take care of my community first,” she begins. “Whoever comes to the doors, of course I’m gonna love on and feed them […] I know my responsibility is to help heal African Americans first and foremost.” In other words, it all begins with her homebase. “I’m going to put in the elbow grease and get my community in order to the best of my ability and I think that’s what has earned me a lot of respect, because I do give back to the community constantly. And why shouldn’t I? They helped to build this.” 

Tassili’s desire to serve others isn’t limited to only her customers.

In order to actualize her vision of building a global enterprise, she hopes that “those people who have helped to actually build the company can one day own franchises.” This idea of an employee-owned company comes out of a duty she feels will grant her loyal team members a sense of having actually grown something. 

She explains, “We’re adding extra value so that people are not working their lives away just to build my dream and then have nothing to show for [it].”

While her narrowest focus is indeed on the restaurant and its growth, she sees her philosophy applying to components far beyond that. It applies to a global credo.

“People who want a healthy earth, who want to be able to vibe with each other, no matter their skin color or culture. […] we want to be healthy. We want our kids to be able to play together. We want our communities to be safe. We want our elders to be taken care of.” 

She continues, “Those of us in the world who share those same visions…we’re the ones who will sustain businesses like mine. And there are many! None of them do what I do with the kale, but I acknowledge my allies in the food industry who are doing their best to bring healthy food to the world, because why not?

“We’re choosing life.”

What you HAVE to get

Our conversation had clearly covered a lot of ground, but I of course had to circle back to those wraps. Specifically, I asked what a first time customer at Tassili’s has to order.

Her first recommendation is the number one seller: the Punany Wrap. 

It contains soy mayo as well as the classic Spicy Kale Salad, avocado, tomato, Sweet Coconut Corn, and couscous.

Tassili describes it as “a savory-sweet wrap. Now…why is it called the Punany Wrap?” she rhetorically asks with a mischievous grin. “Because, like all good punany, it’s hot and spicy; sweet, succulent, and juicy. Like every woman wants to be and like every man wants to experience, and it keeps you coming back for more.” What more convincing do you need?

Another highly-touted item is Dat Ish wrap, named after team member Ishmael, dubbed as “a little taste of the ATL”. It contains the Original Kale Salad, battered mushrooms, avocado, and tomato. 

It was named by the AJC as one of the Best Atlanta Dishes, but there’s another honor that excited Tassili even more. In season 2, episode 5 of the Netflix original show Raising Dion, one of the characters (the actress is a regular customer) is brought a wrap from Tassili’s, branding and all. Her character even says, “I’m all about Dat Ish wrap.” (Check out a low quality video here.)

Tassili squeals with delight, “I have people from all over the world saying, ‘yo, we saw your episode!’”

My two personal favorites are the OG Wrap (in case my ode in the beginning wasn’t clear) and the extra spicy South of the Border Wrap, with a chili pepper kale tortilla, black eyed pea hummus, Moroccan Couscous, and extra avocado. You’ll be thankful for that extra avocado to cool things down.

Legacy

I asked Tassili what she thinks about certain copycats who try to recreate her proprietary wraps, such as this TikTok.

this bout the yummiest salad I ever ate. I could eat this by it’s self w rice forever pic.twitter.com/cb7iX9VSNJ

— skateboard E ^_−☆ (@ai_mei_li) February 24, 2022

“At first I was freaking out, like ‘oh my God they’re gonna steal my recipe’, but then I came to the conclusion that what is for you is for you and what the universe has given me is ultimately mine.”

She elaborates, “There were people who I personally trained to make my kale that messed it up every time!” Once she realized she wasn’t in serious danger of losing business, she saw it as a form of flattery.

“If you come up with a version that works for you […] and it’s helping you to be healthy and happy, then more power to you.”

When Tassili stops and takes stock of her life, things like this simply don’t matter.

“I’m just so in awe of this blessing that has been channeled through me,” she concludes. “Without my talented team, I wouldn’t be able to do it. Without my loving and committed guests, I wouldn’t be able to do it. I’d be sitting up in my kitchen eating kale by myself and it’d be great, but not nearly as fulfilling.

“That’s my high…feeding people.”

As for the future? Tassili has no plans to slow down.

“I plan to be here until at least 150.”