Conversations with Karreno Alexanyan

Today we’d like to introduce you to Karreno Alexanyan.

Hi Karreno, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
My love for food started long before Charqute did. As a kid, I spent summers on my grandparents’ farm in Armenia, churning butter, helping in the garden, and learning to make Armenian string cheese under my grandmother’s watchful eye. That early experience planted something in me I didn’t fully understand until decades later.
I immigrated to Los Angeles at 13, and my path took a very different turn. I spent close to 15 years in banking at JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo while earning my bachelor’s in film from UC Santa Barbara and my master’s in project management from Boston University. Banking gave me structure and a respect for systems. But creatively, I was starving. So I quit and traveled for a year, taking cooking classes in nearly every country I visited. I came home creatively refreshed and started cooking privately for clients. Then the pandemic hit. Around March of 2020, a client who had previously hired me for a grazing table asked if I could create something smaller, a charcuterie board in a box. I had never made one before, but I said yes. It came out beautifully, and the next day her friends placed several orders. I knew I had stumbled onto something.
I had planned to launch around October of 2020, but the Artsakh War broke out, and it didn’t feel right to launch while my community was hurting. Instead, I kept making boards and directed the proceeds to Armenian families and organizations affected by the war. I soft-launched Charqute on December 1, 2020, and officially opened on December 15. The name is a play on ‘charcuterie’ and ‘cute,’ and from day one, sustainability was non-negotiable. Every board and box is reusable or recyclable, and we still ship carbon-neutral through Shopify Planet.
The growth happened faster than I could have predicted. I started posting on TikTok and Instagram, pulling back the curtain on a craft most people assumed was reserved for caterers and stylists. Over 1,000 reels later, Charqute has worked with Disney, Netflix, Paramount Pictures, Live Nation, Warner Bros., Bloomingdale’s, Kaiser Permanente, USC, X, De Soi by Katy Perry, Amass Botanics, and countless A-list celebrities and corporate clients. Some of my proudest moments include a Bridgerton-themed spread for the Television Academy during the Emmys, a Barbie-themed grazing table at Warner Bros., and, most recently, 320 charcuterie boxes for the CBS show Marshals, the new Yellowstone spinoff. I also catered a Yelp Elite All-Star pottery night at Still Life Studios, which captured everything I love about this work: community, creativity, and good food.
In November 2021, the Burbank Chamber of Commerce welcomed Charqute with a ribbon-cutting, and I received certificates of recognition from the City of Burbank, the County of Los Angeles Board of Supervisors, and the California State Assembly. Charqute has also been featured on KFI AM 640’s Gary and Shannon Small Business Shoutout.
None of this would have been possible without my parents, my sister, and my friends. They have been my anchor through every late night, every big launch, and every moment I doubted myself. Their support has shaped Charqute just as much as any board I’ve ever made.
Today, Charqute is in its fifth year. The brand has grown, the product lineup has evolved, and we recently rolled out our new Social Board, Charcuterie Cups, and the Charqute Totes. We continue donating a portion of net proceeds to local nonprofits.
My story is really about trusting my gut, even when the timing made no sense. The pandemic should have ended my career. Instead, it gave me the exact business I was meant to build, and every board I make still feels like a small tribute to my grandmother and the kitchen in Armenia where it all quietly began.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Not even close. Building Charqute has been one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done, and also one of the most humbling.
The business was born during COVID, which meant I was learning how to run a company while the world kept changing under my feet. One month, people were spending freely on luxury experiences. Next, everything froze. When the Hollywood strikes hit, productions made up more than 30 percent of my orders, and almost overnight, that pipeline disappeared. Then came the LA fires, and once again I had to recalibrate. It’s been an emotional roller coaster that doesn’t really stop; you just get better at riding it.
Product development and inventory have been a constant learning curve. Sourcing internationally, working with overseas manufacturers I’ve never met in person, navigating language and time zone gaps, managing storage, and balancing cost against quality, none of that came naturally to someone who spent 15 years in banking. On top of that, tariffs and rising shipping costs have made it harder to keep margins healthy without passing too much on to the customer. Every quote, every container, every restock now requires a level of strategic planning I didn’t anticipate when I started.
Then there’s everything that happens in the background that has nothing to do with the actual art of charcuterie board making. Learning how to manage a website, optimizing for SEO, meta tagging products, staying on top of reviews, posting consistently across platforms, responding to messages, and tracking analytics. It’s a full second job behind the scenes, and most people don’t see it. As a small business owner, I am the creative director, the marketing team, the customer service rep, and the IT department all in one.
The other quiet struggle has been perfectionism. For a long time, I believed that if something wasn’t flawless, I had failed. Over time, I’ve learned that mistakes are often the doorway to unexpected creativity. Some of my best boards and smartest business decisions came directly out of moments I would have once called a failure.
What’s kept me going is something I didn’t expect. Every time I thought it might be time to walk away, something unexpected showed up. A new client, a new opportunity, a new collaboration, a reminder that I was still on the right path. Suffering has taught me patience and trust in my gut in a way that success never could.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I’m the founder and creative director of Charqute, a Los Angeles-based luxury charcuterie and grazing company. We design boards, boxes, cones, and full grazing tables for everything from intimate gatherings to large-scale corporate productions. Every piece is built fresh the day it goes out, using a curated mix of artisan cheeses, cured meats, seasonal fruits, edible flowers, and small details that make each board feel like an edible work of art.
If there’s one thing I’m known for, it’s the artistry. People often pause before eating and tell me a board is “too pretty to touch.” With grazing tables, especially, no one wants to be the first to ruin the design. That kind of reaction never gets old.
What sets Charqute apart is a few things working together. We make everything the same day, never pre-built. Our packaging is reusable or biodegradable, and we ship carbon-neutral through Shopify Planet. We customize for any dietary need, vegetarian, vegan, pork-free, with no upcharge, because I don’t believe dietary restrictions should cost extra. We do cheese letters, themed builds, and full custom concepts for events, from studio premieres to bridal and baby showers. And we genuinely care about the experience, from the first message to the final reveal.
I’m also a teacher at heart. Between TikTok and Instagram, I’ve shared over 1,000 reels, everything from tutorials to behind-the-scenes to the occasional mistake. I love demystifying the craft and showing people how to build their own boards at home. Some of the most rewarding messages I get are from followers who tried something I taught and sent me a photo of their version.
What I’m most proud of is the trust people place in us for their most meaningful moments. Weddings, engagements, baby showers, milestone birthdays, corporate launches, premieres, anniversaries, and even goodbyes. Being invited into those moments and being trusted to make them feel special is the greatest honor of this work.
And beneath it all, I’m proud that Charqute has stayed true to its roots. We give back to our community through ongoing donations to local nonprofits, we source thoughtfully, and we keep family and friends at the center of how we operate. The boards are the visible part. The values are what hold the whole thing together.

If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
I’ve always been an overachiever, but never in a money-driven way. From a young age, my goal was simply to be excellent at whatever I was doing and to be genuinely happy doing it. I chased the things that lit me up, not just paychecks.
Even as a kid in Armenia, I loved organizing. My friends and I would throw mini concert series in the neighborhood, inviting everyone over to watch us perform. It was so much fun, and looking back, that was probably the earliest version of what I do now: bringing people together around something beautiful.
I went to music school for piano, and I was always drawn to creative things. I loved planting too. My grandfather gave me a small plot on the farm to grow whatever I wanted, and I ended up planting their entire rose garden. That patience of watching something grow from nothing taught me more than I realized at the time.
Moving to LA at 13 was a huge turning point. English was my third language. I was born speaking Armenian and picked up Russian from school and TV. So those first years here required a different version of me to show up. I skipped 7th grade because of my math scores and went straight into 9th. I worked my way from ESL to Honors English, joined track and field, and started taking classes at the local community college on the side. By the time I graduated high school, I had already completed my freshman year of credits for UCSB.
For a while, I was convinced I was going to be a doctor. I volunteered over 500 hours at Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital, even though the graduation requirement was only 100. Then I took biology, we dissected a frog, and I realized very quickly that medicine was not going to be my path, ha. It’s funny how one class can completely redirect your life.
High school was a quieter chapter for me. I spent a lot of time in the library, focused on reading, learning, and figuring out how to keep up as I adjusted to a new country. I think that period taught me the discipline and patience that show up in my work today.
When I look back, the threads are all there. The kid organizing neighborhood concerts became the founder hosting grazing tables. The boy planting roses became the artist arranging edible flowers on a board. The student who taught himself a new language became someone who’s now teaching others how to create beauty with food. Nothing about my path has been linear, but every chapter has shaped how I show up now.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.charqute.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/Charqute
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/charquteofficial/
• LinkedIn: https://inkedin.com/company/charqute/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@charqute
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/charqute-burbank-2
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@charquteofficial

Image Credits
Grazing Table Photo is by Viken Balabanian