Runner and restaurateur Pat Fellows has followed a long and winding path to entrepreneurial success. At a young age, Fellows began swimming competitively and continued until he reached LSU, where he pursued a music career for the next 10 years as a guitarist and vocalist with bands Meantree and Rittner.
After recovering from a snowboarding accident in 2000, Fellows left the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle behind and returned to his athletic roots, embracing the world of triathlons, Business Report details in the new Entrepreneur feature in the current issue.
Two years later, he opened his first restaurant, Rocket Fajitas, in Main Street Market. Around that time he also worked at Varsity Sports as one of its early employees.
“I was just trying to figure out ways I could enjoy running and triathlons—and make money doing it,” he says.
Over the years, that notion has produced a pair of downtown health-conscious restaurants—Freshjunkie, which specializes in salads and wraps, and Somos Bandidos, a taco joint—as well as a race production company, Freshjunkie Racing. Fellows plans to open another Freshjunkie restaurant in Southdowns this spring.
For Fellows, aligning his passions and career can take many different forms. On any given day, he might be looking into a new workout concept to bring to Baton Rouge, coaching the University High track team, working in the kitchen at Freshjunkie or planning for one of the 12 marathons he’s involved with in Baton Rouge and the surrounding areas each year—most notably the Louisiana Marathon.
“To some people, it looks like I’m all over the place, and I get that,” Fellows says. “There is a little bit of method to the madness.”
To Fellows, all these efforts fall under the same Freshjunkie brand, an umbrella of ventures aimed at bringing a healthy way of life to Baton Rouge.
Fellows envisions his salad and wrap restaurant as “the lululemon of food.” He hopes his restaurants, combined with the athletic coaching and the race production company under the Freshjunkie brand, will foster a community around healthy living.
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