ARMENIAN DELI REMAINS ALL ABOUT FAMILY
By Bethany Clough
Fresno Bee
Feb 21 2012
CA
Alla’s Armenian Restaurant & Deli is run by just two people: Alla
Sargsyan and her son, Arthur.
Fans of the former Bedrosian’s Armenian Deli in the same location,
3051 E. Ashlan Ave., will recognize Alla. She worked as a cook under
owner Johnnie Bedrosian for 14 years.
Sargsyan and Bedrosian parted ways a little over a year ago and
Bedrosian’s closed shortly after. But in late November, Alla and her
son decided to open their own restaurant in the same space.
Now they spend 12 to 14 hours a day, six days a week, making hummus
and yalanchi — grape leaves stuffed with rice, onion and tomatoes —
from scratch.
Alla cooks while Arthur waits tables. During busy lunch hours, he
runs back and forth from the dining room, down a long hallway he calls
his highway, to a Weber grill out the back of the restaurant. There,
he tends to the chicken, beef, lamb and pork kebabs they added to
the menu.
They know they need to hire another person, but right now they don’t
have the money.
The little restaurant at the northwest corner of First Street and
Ashlan Avenue is still getting a makeover. There’s a new paint job,
ceiling and floor, but the alcoves that line the dining room are empty,
waiting for business to pick up before money is spent on filling them
with sculptures.
Alla is cooking much of the same menu as the old place. She built up
quite a following when the restaurant was Bedrosian’s.
“I like them. They like me, like a family,” Alla says.
And family is important to the Sargsyans, in part because they don’t
have very much of it.
Alla and a 9-year-old Arthur, an only child, moved from Armenia to
Fresno in 1995 to be closer to Alla’s husband’s family. The couple
divorced, but Alla stayed, despite not having a single blood relative
in the country.
So those relationships they have with customers are all the more
important, they say. When people get to know them and greet them with
a hug like they’re family, it makes the hard work worth it, Arthur says
“When we go home after 12 hours, we’re not as tired,” he says.
Can we talk about desserts for a minute?
Every time I write about special holiday meals at restaurants, I end
up salivating over the desserts.
Like the blackberry, peach and pistachio crumble topped with a
pistachio butter topping that Elaine’s Table at Tres Bien in Visalia
had for Valentine’s Day. How can you not want to indulge in something
sweet after reading that description?
So I want to find out where you get your favorite dessert. Drop me a
line at [email protected] telling me where you go and what sweet
something you order. Describe it for me and maybe I’ll include it in
a future column.
Dickey’s Barbecue Pit opened Feb. 10 at 73 N. Main St. in Porterville.
It’s the first Dickey’s for the central San Joaquin Valley and
franchisee Ed Phillips tells me that the ribs are selling so well
they can’t cook them fast enough.
http://www.fresnobee.com/2012/02/20/2729823/armenian-deli-remains-all-about.html