Tavahn Ghazi is a Bay Area hospitality and events specialist and a member of Our Collective Edge. He grew up in the family business — the Little Shamrock, one of San Francisco's oldest bars — and started serving guests young. After learning the trade in a classic neighborhood bar, he apprenticed in Marfa, Texas, under James Rodewald, former Drinks Editor at Gourmet, helping design the bar program at Cochineal and managing Maiya's and Jett's at the Paisano Hotel. He went on to design and consult on food and beverage programs, most notably a full build — infrastructure, menu, and staff training — at the Stonehouse in Nevada City, one of the highest-rated spots in the area.
As co-owner of San Francisco's Homestead Cookies, Tavahn co-founded Little Brothers, a bespoke catering and events company working across California for families, institutions, universities, and corporations — the Pritzker family, the Kimptons, the Modells, Nick Woodman, UCSF, Live Nation, Sony, Google, Apple, Disney, Stern Grove, Outside Lands, and Another Planet Entertainment among them. As head chef, he ran private backstage catering for Lady Gaga, Mötley Crüe, Kevin Hart, the San Francisco Symphony, Chaka Khan, Diana Ross, Beyoncé, the Grateful Dead, Raphael Saadiq, Feist, Todd Rundgren, Steve Earle, Loretta Lynn, and Paul Reubens, alongside UCSF training sessions, festival vendor coordination, weddings, and Burning Man artist camps.
Raised in a Persian household, Tavahn cooks from those flavors, mixing in health-forward Caribbean influences to build menus that are nutritious and a little adventurous. A background in music and the arts shapes the rest of it: he treats a room as a whole experience, from the food to the playlist, lighting, florals, flatware, and set decor. He works closely with Chris Fernandez — a Bay Area legend and former executive chef at Piatti, Poggio, and Terrapin Crossroads, now reopening the iconic Julius Castle — and with Chef Ann Cromley of Chez Panisse.
That range is what he brings to Our Collective Edge. Alongside Neal Hegarty and Jeremy Fellows of CreaSol Permaculture, Tavahn helped start the collective to design businesses that are mutually beneficial by intention — where aligned goals and shared values are built into how the work actually gets done. The group pulls together backgrounds in events, science, hospitality, engineering, food and drink, and entertainment to produce regenerative events and programs and to serve as a design hub for sustainable building and production.
Outside the collective, Tavahn designs permaculture systems and properties with CreaSol in Atitlán, Guatemala, pairing farm development with food security to grow more food for more people. He and his wife own a small bed and breakfast in Atenas, Costa Rica, where they're building a tropical food forest and keeping their fingernails full of soil.