Meet Chef Vatche
Roasted by a chef.
Chef Vatche Moukhtarian caught the cooking bug as a teenager, not long after his family emigrated to North America. Culinary school in San Francisco led to the line at the Peppermill in Reno, then the opening team at Chukchansi Gold, Sous Chef at its steakhouse Vintage, and several years at Tenaya Lodge at Yosemite.
In 2006 he came home and opened Cracked Pepper Bistro in Fresno — regional cooking, close-to-the-source ingredients, everything from scratch. Nearly two decades of that discipline is what eventually pulled him toward coffee. Sanctuary Roasting started in his kitchen, and it is still his hands on every batch.
Food Network Guy's Grocery Games winner. 2026 Chef of the Year nominee, California Restaurant Association. More at chefvatche.com.
Coffee is for conversation.
How we roast
Specialty coffee, roasted weekly.
Every green coffee we buy is specialty grade — the top of the world’s crop. Chef Vatche roasts it himself on a Primo roaster at 12 W Palo Alto Avenue in Clovis, in small batches, every week, and tastes every batch before it goes out the door. Days later the same coffee is poured at Sanctuary Coffee Refuge in Fresno, our affiliate café, so you can taste it before you buy a bag.
Most roasters can’t show you their roastery. Most don’t have a café where you can taste their coffee within a week of roasting. We do both.
Reserve a free cupping
Our heritage
Armenian coffee, at the center of the table.
Chef Vatche’s Armenian heritage is what drew him to coffee in the first place. In Armenian homes coffee is a tradition of its own — shared with friends and family, the center of the conversation, passed down through generations as a sign of hospitality.
It is made from beans ground extra-fine and brewed slowly in a jazve (or cezve). Calm heat makes a rich, thick cup served unfiltered, the grounds settling at the bottom — intensely aromatic, robust, and smooth.
