Healthy food doesn’t mean boring at this new eatery in Fresno. ‘Fresher and better’
As a life-long vegetarian, professional cook and photographer, Janna Melkonian knows what it takes to make food look and taste good.
She’s used those skills over the years to cultivate a passionate following of customers who buy her plant-based meals weekly. Now, after overcoming several road blocks, due mostly to the pandemic, she’s opened her newest venture: a store front in northwest Fresno called Rappit Up!
Located on the southwest corner of Bullard and Marks avenues, Melkonian hopes Rappit Up! will become the go-to spot for people craving plant-based dishes and for those curious to try something new.
And she promises, this isn’t rabbit food.
Inside her store are ready-to-go packaged meals, including wraps, sandwiches, bowls, salads, pasta, soups, breakfast items and desserts. You can also order dishes from an extensive menu on her website, rappitupfoods.com.
Melkonian says she’s driven by the desire to create healthy, plant-based dishes that are fresh-tasting and flavorful. She also enjoys debunking the myths around vegetarian and vegan foods such as the food doesn’t having enough protein, or it won’t fill you up, and that it tastes bland.
“My main goal is to change how people view healthy food as far as flavor and taste,” she said. “Because you don’t have to give up flavor and taste to be healthy.”
Several of her customers praise her creativity in combining different, grains, vegetables and spices to come up with her meals.
Karen Willoughby of Fresno has been buying Rappit Up! foods since October as she undergoes cancer treatments.
Willoughby said she needed something convenient, ready made and good-tasting — and found that with Melkonian’s meals.
“Fighting cancer takes a toll on your body and there are times I don’t feel like eating, but her food is so delicious that I crave it,” Willoughby said. “I also like the fact that I am getting fresher and better food.”
Willoughby has grown fond of the Korean veggie pancakes served with gochujang dressing: “I wish she would bottle that sauce — it is so good.”
Longtime customer Dr. Kiran Batth met Melkonian about 10 years ago when she was a receptionist at a Fresno hair salon.
Melkonian began making and selling vegetarian dishes to Batth’s coworkers after they became envious of her homemade lunches.
As a doctor and a vegetarian, Batth encourages the consumption of more plant-based meals in people’s diets. And, she said, Melkonian makes it easy.
“Her meals are very balanced,” Batth said. “There are lots of greens, healthy fats, protein sources and, of course, flavor.”
Melkonian credits her family, especially her grandmother, for teaching her about vegetarian cooking. She’s also spent many hours in the kitchen experimenting with different foods to achieve new flavors, textures and spiciness.
One of Melkonian’s favorite things to do is take a popular food item and give it her own spin. If you are a fan of the Taco Bell Crunchwrap, Rappit Up! has it’s own version that includes a flour tortilla, mashed pinto beans, cilantro lime rice, mushroom chorizo, baked tostada, house nacho cheese sauce, pico de gallo and romaine lettuce.
