If you're anything like us, you use the word "awesome" a lot. Great food, amazing sunsets, silly costumes -- all these things are deemed "awesome" before we have a chance to think twice. But every once in a while something comes along that's so truly awesome we need to stop and savor it. Like Awesome Bars, the SF-made granola bars that are taking the city by storm.





Leah Melnik was training for a marathon when she realized that the bars she was fueling her body with just weren't that good. Not awesome at all, really. So she used her culinary background and, with the help of her sister Stephanie, started to experiment with a recipe to make granola bars that were good for you and actually tasted great, too.





Leah and Stephanie knew they were onto something when they debuted their homemade bars at the Underground Market and nearly everyone who tasted them said, "Mmm. Awesome!" The name was quick, easy, and to the point. They decided that "Awesome Bars" had a pretty nice ring to it, and the name stuck.

With sister Melissa as their designer (the packaging is 100% compostable) and dad as their business consultant, the Awesome sisters started to roll our their bars in earnest, with such all-natural flavors as blueberry almond, coconut pecan, salty peanut and cranberry trail mix. They make the bars by hand themselves, toasting the oats and adding the nuts, fruits and secret sauce that make it all come together. They add a layer of chocolate to every bar too, because hey, it makes them that much more awesome.





Their business exploded over Christmas when they began offering their 10-bar boxes for sale online, and it's been growing ever since, with bars appearing in cafes all over town thanks to their team's tireless efforts. Want to try a bite? Check out this map to see which cafes are carrying Awesome Bars, or order a box online for a guaranteed healthy snack whenever you need it. When you take your first bite, we're betting one word will come to mind. It starts with an "a" and ends with an "e". We'll let you fill in the rest.