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New owners Lindsay Harper and Carl Beckman Jr. soft launch an updated menu at the Downtown Fresno storefront
Two former customers of Raw Fresno have purchased the gourmet raw vegan restaurant at The Galleria in Downtown Fresno, taking over from a founder who built the business as a tribute to her late son.
Lindsay Harper and Carl Beckman Jr. bought the restaurant from founder Naomi Hendrix, who announced her retirement after 20 years. The new owners soft launched an updated menu Monday.
Harper learned the business was for sale through a Facebook post. Hendrix wrote that after 20 years of running Raw Fresno — a mission born from her son’s death — she was ready to hand it off.
“My wife saw on Facebook that she was retiring and looking for somebody to take it over while we were at Vintage Days,” Beckman said. “She needed somebody to take it over by June 1, and that was like April 27, so it was really quite the scurry to get the lease and everything. But we did, and here we are.”
Longtime customers become owners
Beckman said he first tried Raw Fresno’s food more than 20 years ago, when a Muay Thai training partner introduced him to Hendrix’s food truck. He kept buying from the truck on weekends and later visited the Galleria storefront after it opened.
Harper and Beckman said healthy eating was already central to their lives before they took over. Beckman had followed an anti-inflammatory diet based on a friend’s recommendation, and Harper said she had independently arrived at a similar way of eating while working through her own health issues.
Ten years ago, Harper began losing her vision and experiencing nerve pain and numbness in her hands.
“My father had passed away from MS, so I went to the doctor,” Harper said. “They ran a few tests, and he handed me a list of medication that said, ‘Pick one of these.'”
Harper said she researched anti-inflammatory diets on her own instead.
“One night, after reading and reading, I decided that tomorrow I was not going to eat any more dairy or gluten, and I quit that day cold turkey,” she said. “Within a week or two, all my symptoms just went away.”
Harper said she has not had the same health issues since and has slowly reintroduced some cooked vegetables, nuts and legumes into her diet.
New owners also run Beckman Tower
In addition to Raw Fresno, Harper and Beckman co-own and operate Beckman Tower, a telecommunications company founded by Carl Beckman Sr. in 1981. The company builds and installs antennas, stadium lighting, cameras and more.
Past projects include whale-spotting cameras in the San Francisco Bay, CAL FIRE watch cameras and stadium lighting at Coalinga High School.
Updated menu keeps longtime favorites
Beckman and Harper plan to keep Raw Fresno’s regular items, including the beans and greens, farmers market wraps and marinated mushrooms. They’re adding a zoodle — zucchini noodle — pesto pasta salad, a Caprese salad made with house-prepared vegan mozzarella, a rotating vegetable soup and a warm carrot-and-cauliflower nacho cheese sauce.
The owners are also expanding the drink menu with frozen fruit smoothies and a house probiotic kefir water made without added sugar.
Beckman said a customer recently questioned the nutritional value of one of the smoothies.
“He wasn’t sure that it was healthy,” Beckman said of a conversation between Harper and a customer. “She said, ‘Why don’t you think this is healthy?’ And he says, ‘It tastes really good.'”
Staff stays through ownership change
Two of Hendrix’s employees are staying on through the change, including longtime workers Susan and Autumn. Susan has handled Raw Fresno’s soups and vegan raw desserts for several years and will continue in that role. Autumn worked part time under Hendrix and has since moved to full time, working the register, prepping orders and promoting the business through social posts and reels.
Harper said keeping the existing staff meant the new owners didn’t have to learn operations from scratch.
“They’re sharing a lot of knowledge with us,” she said.
Raw Fresno’s roots
Hendrix opened Raw Fresno after her son, Ian Zachary Smith, died Aug. 27, 2006, at age 21 after suffocating during a seizure, according to an article in the now-defunct Central California Life Magazine. The magazine reported that Hendrix learned of Smith’s gluten intolerance after his death.
In her Facebook retirement announcement, Hendrix said she founded Raw Fresno to honor her son’s memory and help others navigate similar health challenges. She wrote that she plans to spend her retirement cycling the coast and birding in the foothills.
Hendrix grew the business from cooking classes at Whole Foods Market and farmers markets into a food truck. Raw Fresno later placed second in the Downtown Fresno Foundation’s Create Here Business Plan Competition, which helped lead to an offer of 12 months of free rent at the Galleria at Fresno’s Civic Center Square. She opened the storefront about 10 years ago.
Raw Fresno’s 827-square-foot storefront seats 16 and offers free pickup through its website. Harper and Beckman are also relaunching delivery through Uber Eats and Grubhub.
The restaurant is open 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. weekdays and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturdays. It is closed Sundays.
