Meet Souren and Susan Etyemezian

Q: What inspired you both to go into business together? 

Souren: So a friend of mine offered to teach me how to roast nuts at his business in Los Angeles back in 1990. I accepted and spent a week with him, learning the basics of roasting nuts. Then I put the business plan together and opened the store with my cousin. 

Susan: I married into the business when we married, about five years later. I moved to Boston because Souren had this business. I slowly just became more and more immersed in it, until it was what I did. 

Q: Did you start Fastachi here in Watertown? 

Susan: Souren actually opened our first store in Belmont where the current Praline is located.  Together we opened our second store down in the Seaport district very early on, before anybody else had opened anything there.  

Souren: That business prospered and grew, and we had a maximum of five stores at one point. We opened Beacon Hill and then after that, Wellesley. We had a pop-up in Time Out and we had a kiosk in the Prudential center.

Q: When did you come to Watertown? 

Souren: We opened the Watertown store in 2003. By then we were doing both nuts and chocolates. We had started the chocolates when we were in Belmont and did really well with it. 

Susan: We came to Watertown from the Belmont site because we knew there was a market here in Coolidge Square, so people were already coming to this area. We are still a destination store for many of our customers, but on Belmont Street we were even more of a destination, if you know what I mean. It’s great for our business to be in Coolidge Square, where people can just pop in when they are shopping at the other stores already.

Q: How do your individual strengths complement each other in running the business?   

Susan: I would say Souren is really the leader and the visionary, and he gets things done.

Souren: And I would say Susan is our problem solver, and she really runs the operations.

Susan: A lot of it is in close collaboration. For example, our store’s interior and design aesthetic. Souren has a  good eye for design and style, in layout, in fixtures and so on. And I’ve got a good feel for that as well. Souren's sister is an architect. We used all our strengths in creating that – and in all the things we do. 

Souren: And we are always learning. When we travel, I like to learn and understand why things are done a certain way, and what it might mean for us in our operations. For example, I'm very good at utilizing our space in the right way. At one point, we had maybe 45 people working during the Christmas peak, in the front and back of the shop. That’s a lot of people!  Of course, it’s different now – Covid changed it, and also, we can’t find staff.

We also make sure we use new technology to make the work as simple as possible. We have to do the physical part of roasting the nuts, for example. I used to have to stand in front of the roasters waiting and waiting for just the right moment to take them out. Now the technology can tell me when they’ve reached the optimal time. 

Q: What got you into making chocolates? 

Souren: I had an Armenian friend who was making chocolate, and eventually he couldn't keep up with the demand. So we said, well we can take it over. 

Susan: Then, through our travels and being in the specialty food industry, we educated ourselves about chocolate and just took what he had been doing to the next level. And we continue to innovate.

In fact, we just offered our first Dubai chocolate bar, which is very popular nowadays. It’s a new thing, costly, but in high demand. We are offering both bars and smaller single bite pieces. Right now we are offering only a pistachio version, but we will be making other versions as well. Stay tuned for new treats!

Q: How do you develop your recipes, whether for chocolates or nut mixes?

Susan: That is a bit more my area, although again, it is always a collaboration between us. When we were creating the nut mixes, we weren't just throwing a bunch of nuts and dried fruit together. We literally tasted many different mixtures, seeing what worked, and what didn’t work. It takes time and patience. It's the same with the chocolate – it's just about taking the time to create the right flavor.

Q: So Susan, I have to ask, what’s your earliest memory involving chocolate or nuts that still sticks with you today? 

Susan: The holidays. Being an Armenian home, we always had dried fruits and nuts out, throughout the entire holiday season. My father was a lover of peanuts and, yes, we had Planters peanuts at home growing up.

Q: Sourcing the highest quality inputs seems key – how do you do it? 

Souren: Nuts are like fruit – they are not always available, and every year the harvest is different. Climate issues affect availability and quality. And the harvest demand affects the availability every year.  So we don't shop around. We just try to make sure we buy quality products from suppliers we know and have worked with over the years.

At Fastachi, we buy the very best flavor and quality, and if it is not available, then it's not available that year. We won’t compromise that.

But things are changing. We have 30 year relationships with suppliers, but people are retiring or leaving the industry. That’s hard.

And climate. You know, the trees flower in February, and things like winds, fires, heat, and drought, all matter. Whatever happens in February affects the prices for the next year and a half. I remember reading about the almond trees in California and water. They got rid of a lot of almond trees.

Most of our nuts come from America – very few are from overseas. Hazelnuts from Oregon; almonds, walnuts, pistachios from California; pecans from the south or Mexico; peanuts in the Carolinas and Virginia.  Cashews are a tropical fruit so they come from overseas.  

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Q: We all have our favorite Fastachi nut mixes and chocolates in my family. What are your biggest sellers?

Susan: Easy! On the nuts, it is the  cranberry nut mix. People just love it. It's a beautiful look, and  the taste of the salty and the sweet and the tart, the mix of chewy and crunchy textures – people just love it. On the chocolates, it is our dark chocolate almond bark. It's just such a simple combination, but it is a go to, year in and year out. 

Souren: It’s funny how outside things can also influence what we sell. Thirty years ago we sold a lot of cashew and pistachio mixes. Then the Atkins diet came along, and all of sudden everyone wanted to eat more nuts, especially almonds. People came in saying “my doctor told me I need to eat more nuts for my health”.  Atkins even came to our store one time.  And all these years later, we still sell a lot of almonds, in our mixes and the chocolates.

Q: What’s your favorite thing to do when you are not making delicious treats for the rest of us? 

Susan: Easy again! We like going to the library with our kids! We were just there last Sunday for a great presentation. It's that, and the playgrounds. 

Nicole: you'll find Fastachi at 598 Mount Auburn Street, in the heart of Coolidge Square. My personal favorites are Cranberry Nut White Chocolate Bark and the Cranberry Nut Mix. And everyone loves when I bring gifts from Fastachi! So order ahead or plan on lines, come the holiday season. :)

Susan and Souren, in Fastachi