Fresno coffee roaster expands with bakery, Mediterranean cafe plans

What started with coffee at a Fresno farmers market is turning into a broader food business, with Fabiano Coffee Roasters now operating a bakery and lining up a Mediterranean cafe at the former Lewis Diamond Co. site at Alluvial Avenue and Fresno Street in northeast Fresno. The move puts a homegrown brand on one of the area’s most visible retail corners, a location that could bring more foot traffic to nearby shops while filling an empty space with a local operator instead of a national chain.

Fabiano’s has been roasting coffee in Fresno since 1993, and it still sells every Saturday from 7 a.m. to noon at the Vineyard Farmers Market on the northwest corner of Blackstone and Shaw. Hamed Alghazali bought the business three years ago, then started building a food operation around it. That expansion is already visible at Rumi Baklava, which held its soft opening on May 1 at 2767 W Shaw Ave #117, a 1,500-square-foot bakery in west Fresno.

Rumi Baklava is turning out about 50 traditional Syrian baked goods from scratch each day, including baklava made with pistachios, walnuts and cashews, along with crown of the king and kunafa. The pastry chef, Anas Hamad, is from Syria, and the bakery is taking catering orders with 48 hours’ notice. Customers can also order through DoorDash and Uber Eats, a sign that the business is trying to reach beyond walk-in traffic as it builds a following.

The next step is Rumi Coffee, expected to open by June, part of a larger Mediterranean brand that ties together coffee, baklava and a future cafe. Alghazali’s route to Fresno helps explain the pace of the expansion. He had been working remotely from a United Nations policy adviser job in New York when the pandemic brought him back to Fresno with his family. From there, the business has grown from a farmers-market roaster into a bakery and now into a planned restaurant presence, reflecting a local dining market that still has room for independent operators betting on regional identity, neighborhood investment and demand for food rooted in specific traditions.