I remembered his grandeur personality and the our conversation which was the last and was over three hours long. Somewhat worried I forced myself to find the notes I had taken during our conversation in my  desk drawer which was in a state of dissorder.
I looked at my notes and calculated that a year five months and five days had passed in between...
And now he did not exist... Naturaly netiher did the opurtunity of conversation.
I am talking to the most important person 7 Mehmet in the field of restaurant management in Antalya at his famous restaurant located at Konyaaltı.
It is the last year of the nomad  tents of Konyaaltı, I walked to 7 Mehmet from the tent where I was staying. I had walked by to call the Newspaper office.
Our conversation gets heavy and I started to take notes.
During our conversation, despite the sumer season the clouds got dark and it rained a little... The overcrowded beach was evacuated all of a sudden.

• Who is 7 Mehmet? How did this name come about?... Where is he from? How did he come to this day?

  I am truly from Antalya... starts to talk Mehmet Akdağ and continues. I lost my father When I was very small. When I reached the age of eight children my age were going to school. My mother had to send me to a reataurant to work. So that I could help my destitute family in poverty. My master was Hacı Hasan and he was very famous in his profession. I learned a lot from my master whom I always  remember with gratitude. I too taught many what I had learned in turn.

  Immediately after the foundation of the REPUBLIC we served Atatürk who had come to Antalya in the garden of the municipality, in open air among flowers. We had gathered green beans barely enough for one dish from all the vegatable gardens around. There werent any green houses like today in those days. The season was the first  month of spring. Despite this we were able to serve the Great Saviour the green beens he liked very much, and we werent embarrassed.
   

• Uncle Mehmet, Where did you first open your place, I mean your own place? What sort of a start did you have?

  I opened my own place, a small shop which only served soup, in the municipality arcade right next to İbrahim Yaprak’s shop. I served the iron smithts in their shops with a hanging tray the first day. The second day I stopped this service and started to wait in my shop. The customers stormed in such a way that there was a que infront of my shop. My tactics had worked. The shop keepers who had tasted the the soup with a lot of butter had larned the location of my shop and ı did not have to carry the soup out. I knew the trade but I did not have the means, a larger place and the equipment. Right in those days there was a greek group of 350 people, from Antalya who had left during the war, had come to visit their hometown... The mayor  then Seyit Ali Bey wanted to give them a dinner... In those days there were three good restaurants in Antalya; those were; Ankara, 96 and Bedri İnci. The mayor had consulted them and found them to be expensive and then came to me. I told him that I would do the job provided tha he provided the equipment. Yet I ended up finding the utencils and the serving setsby myself. I bought them from Burhan Kilit on loan. I served 350 people in the municipality hall without receiving any money... Just the expences only.... The municipality did not have the means to pay for such activities anyway...

  The municipality arcade now was then the fish market and on the south was the fire department. It was accross my small shop... When the fire department moved out it was put out to tender. After a very competitive bidding I rented it for A THOUSAND Liras with the help of the Mayor Seyit Ali Bey and I put up my first sign.
   

• Where does the name 7 Mehmet come from or who gave this name to you?

  No body has asked me about this up till today. I thought that every body knew about it and that must be why nobody is asking.  Look at my forehead closely!  This scar happened due to a fall when I was small and it looks like the number seven in the old script(Arabic). There fore my childhood friends used to call me 7 Mehmet. So I had my first sign made as 7 Mehmet. So the 7 Mehmet Restaurant started in 1940 ies has continued untill today. Let me tell you something interesting... The tourists coming from abroad find me by the name “Seven Mehmet (Mehmet who Loves)” seven coming from the word for 7 in English.

  Let me tell you one of my memories about the foreigners. A group of 60 Billioners had come from England and they filmed the dinner I had served them from starting to the end... After they showed this in England  I was also known in England.

  I have served Celal Bayar, Adnan Menderes and many important people that I can not name them all here.

  It was a time when tourists and tourism was not known in Turkey... The person to bring the first tourist group to Turkey is Burhanettin Onat... He came to Antalya with this group... The mayor of theat time  Hayret Şakrak asked me and I served this group for three days... The reason I am telling you this is that it was my lot to first  serve a tourist group  ...

  I would never serve any dishes that I would not eat myself.

  I am one of those that knows the authentic Turkish dishes very well... I would never serve my customers any dish that I would not eat myself or that I am not sure of the quality of it. I made Olive oil stuffed grape leaf for Vehbi Koç; Mahmut Konuk’s guest. They had eaten it at Manavgat waterfalls. Vehbi Koç with the flavor still on his pallet wanted to see me and meet me.He and Mahmut Konuk came together and he told me exactly the following: Even the famous master cooks can not make such a good and delicious dish. I have never eaten such delicious dish with such an appetite. I Congradulate you...

  When reflecting the fire at the Konyaaltı Reastaurant it was as if he was living through the incident again.

  When I was told about the fire and came to the site the flames had taken everything.What was burning was my shop that was carrying my name.... I couldn’t rezist and fainted. I opened my eyes at the hospital and had treatment at the hospital for a while... 7 Mehmet who had restored his restaurant which was in ruin together with his emloyees and reopened it in a short while and was sitting at his usual seat in his restaurant which he had spent a fortune to get rid of the traces of the fire and modernised, had forgaten all the hardshıp he had faced, is relaxing over his 69 years tiredness by greeting his friends who have come to be with him.

  7 Mehmet who was stating the numeruos letters of appretiation he had received from the important statesmen along with the one signed by the the Presidency of the Grand National Assembly of the People Turkey, was in tears when talking about loosing the majortiy of them in the fire and the grief of knowing that those lost spiritual values could not be replaced.

  All of those who were running restaurants in my time had made good money, they became wealthy property owners. I have been working for fourty years exactly... Thank god I have four children two boys and two daughters. I have earned their future. I have a house and enough material to open three restaurants....

  Most important of all I have a clean name and what they call endless wealth respect.

  7 Mehmet Akdağ speaks of his two sons who have choosen their fathers trade as apposed to higher education as follows.

  I wanted both of them to go on with their education. But then I saw that they were competing with me... As you see I have turned everything upon them.and I am very satisfied. My children are taking all the steps I did not dare according to the contemporary necessities, without spoiling our traditian and characteristic. Every father cherishes the idea that his children would carry out his name to the future generations.

  7 Mehmet is one of the lucky ones... The 50 year old 7 Mehmet name will be passed on to their children by his sons Hakkı and Sadullah and wiil live for several fifty years, I believe.

  And it should.