Melissa El Haddad's Rise Is Making Wellness Taste Better in Beirut

Opening a café in Beirut is already an exercise in optimism. Opening one during war and instability, with no previous experience in F&B*, after leaving a career in investment banking in London, requires a slightly different level of conviction.

That is exactly what Melissa El Haddad, founder of Rise, decided to do. And we have to admit, we have a soft spot for stories like this at JDEED. We love discovering and supporting women-owned businesses, particularly when there is a woman behind them who has taken an unexpected career turn, backed her own idea and created something she genuinely felt was missing from her city.

Melissa's road to Rise was anything but predictable. She studied Industrial Engineering at AUB before completing a Master's in International Finance at HEC Paris, then moved to London, where she spent more than three years working in investment banking at UBS, focusing on leveraged finance, financing and capital markets across Europe and the US.

But wellness had always existed alongside finance. Melissa completed a holistic health coaching certification and became increasingly interested in how healthier choices could become easier, more enjoyable and, importantly, less obsessive. When she eventually returned to Beirut, she realised that the place she wanted to go to herself didn't really exist. She wanted somewhere she could walk into, order a coffee, smoothie or dessert and feel confident about what was in it without studying every label, asking endless questions or accepting that “healthy” automatically meant less delicious.

So she built it herself. “Sometimes betting on yourself is the boldest decision you can make, especially when everything around you tells you not to.”

Located in Gemmayze, Rise describes itself as Beirut's first refined sugar-free, adaptogen-focused coffee and wellness bar, built around a rather straightforward philosophy: wellness should be exciting, delicious and easy enough to fit into real life.

Specialty coffee sits at the centre of it, but the menu quickly moves beyond your usual flat white. There is matcha, functional smoothies, wellness drinks and shots, desserts, alongside additions including collagen, probiotics, spirulina and protein.

Then come the ingredients you may be slightly less accustomed to ordering with your morning coffee: Lion's Mane, Ashwagandha, Cordyceps, Reishi and Maca.

Customers can personalise their drinks depending on what they feel they need that day, whether that's focus, energy or balance. For Melissa, part of the fun is taking ingredients that can sometimes make wellness culture feel intimidating and introducing them through something as familiar as a daily coffee or smoothie.

“Someone might walk in having never heard of Lion's Mane or Reishi, ask what it is, try it in their coffee or smoothie and leave having discovered something completely new.”

Something we really loved is that everything served at Rise is 100 percent refined sugar-free, with plenty of gluten-free and dairy-free options too. But Melissa is quick to distance Rise from the idea of a “diet café: “Wellness at Rise is not about restriction, calorie counting or perfection,” she tells us.

And we're glad, because we've had quite enough of wellness being presented as another list of things we're apparently doing wrong. Melissa's approach is much more appealing: use good ingredients, be transparent about what's inside, and make something people would actually choose because it tastes good.

The real test might be the chocolate chip cookie. “One of my favorite moments is watching someone take their first bite of our chocolate chip cookie and say: ‘I can't believe this doesn't contain refined sugar.’”

That reaction probably explains Rise better than any wellness terminology could. The idea isn't to order the cookie because it's the “better” option. You're supposed to genuinely want the cookie and then discover that making a different choice doesn't necessarily mean giving up the indulgent part. “To me, wellness should never feel like a punishment. It should feel exciting, delicious and sustainable,” affirms El Haddad.

As a certified holistic health coach, Melissa had long been interested in functional ingredients and their traditional uses. At Rise, adaptogens are offered as additions to drinks, making them considerably less intimidating than encountering them for the first time on the back of a supplement bottle.

They also become conversation starters; someone might walk into Rise knowing exactly what they want. Someone else might simply ask why everyone keeps talking about Lion's Mane. Both are welcome, and that's important to Melissa. Rise isn't designed for people who already know everything about wellness. Part of its purpose is making that world easier to enter without feeling like you need to learn an entirely new language first.

Rise, at the heart of Gemmayze

The physical space follows much the same philosophy. Rise is bright, colourful, warm and energetic rather than clinical or aggressively “healthy.” Melissa wanted it to feel like a small reset in someone's day, which, in a city that rarely seems particularly interested in slowing down, feels especially welcome.

“I often describe Rise as the friend who always makes you feel better after spending time with them,” she says. “It is warm, welcoming, full of energy and genuinely cares about your wellbeing.”

More importantly, Rise is supposed to work around your day rather than asking you to rearrange it. Ten minutes between meetings? Grab something on the go. Two hours and a laptop? Stay. Just finished working out? There's a smoothie. Stressful day? Perhaps an Ashwagandha latte. Need to concentrate? Coffee with Lion's Mane.

And if none of the above applies and you simply want a cookie, please, have the cookie. “You don't have to overthink it.” That might actually be our favourite piece of wellness advice.

Rise Is Just Getting Started

Since opening, Melissa has already started pushing Rise beyond the walls of its Gemmayze café. The product universe is expanding through functional creations including Supercubes, while Rise has collaborated with brands across wellness, beauty, fashion and lifestyle, including Alo Yoga, Kahaw, FaceFit and Matcha Rituals.

The next step is continuing to build the community around Rise, developing new products and experiences and exploring opportunities beyond the first location.

Melissa ultimately doesn't see Rise remaining one coffee shop. “I see the potential for it to become a lifestyle brand built around the same philosophy wherever it goes: making wellness feel exciting, delicious, social and effortless.”

And maybe that's why Rise works. It doesn't require you to suddenly become the person who wakes up at 5 a.m., meditates, journals, hits Pilates and drinks something green before the rest of Beirut has opened its eyes. You can have the Ashwagandha latte, add Lion's Mane to your coffee or order the smoothie....but you can also just have the chocolate chip cookie.

*Food and Beverages

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