Yanaya
Health food restaurant chain
MAKING IT RAIN IN
HARARE
The arrival of Yanaya has been a tonic for health conscious foodies in the Zim capital with its takeaway or eat-in menu of fresh salads, gourmet sandwiches, juices and bunless burgers. Cecilia Kamuputa meets its chief executive Nyaradzo Moyo.
Y
anaya, in the local Shona language, literally means ‘It has rained or the rain has come’, but has come to be understood as a description of anything freshly arrived. It is then a fitting name for Zimbabwe’s first and exclusively healthy food restaurant chain. As Yanaya’s chief executive, Nyaradzo Moyo, tells us at Twiga: “Rain brings food, freshness, health and many good things. “Yanaya also means an answered prayer in Hebrew so the naming was
inspired by the fact that we serve, healthy food and the business model itself is an answered prayer.” Yanaya was established in 2016, starting off as a small side hustle involving lunchtime food deliveries direct to offices in the city. This model worked for three years until demand grew and a ‘grab and go booth’ was opened at Joina City in the capital. The booth ran for seven months before the first official sit-in restaurant was opened. “When I returned home from university in 2016, I struggled with
Yanaya has gone from strength to strength since Nyaradzo Moyo (above) launched it as a side hustle in 2016
finding places that served vegan meals or that offered healthier options,” says Moyo, who as a member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, follows a plantbased diet
Healthy living “I grew up Adventist and we are big on healthy living, so my faith as well as my own personal lifestyle was a big influence to the niche I chose. You could say I solved a problem I was familiar with.” Yanaya, which opens from airtanzania.co.tz / 41
