The Beginning of 7 Mehmet

“Grandson” Mehmet begins to tell the story of how “grandfather” Mehmet opened his first restaurant… “My grandfather started working at the restaurant where he was employed as an apprentice. Over time, he rose from apprentice to journeyman, and from journeyman to master. In our profession, every apprentice dreams of opening his own place one day and becoming the master there. My grandfather felt he had reached that point. After returning from military service, he went to his master and told him that he wanted to open his own restaurant. As he told my father, and my father later told me, his only dream was to see the people of Antalya lining up at the door of his restaurant and to host them in the very best way. In 1937, when my grandfather was only 21 years old, he opened the shop he had rented from the Antalya Municipality, known as the “Belediye Lokantası” — the very place everyone knows today as 7 Mehmet Restaurant, and the foundation of our commercial registry records.
On opening day, the surrounding shopkeepers drank the buttered tripe soup that 7 Mehmet distributed free of charge. My grandfather personally introduced himself to each of them, telling them that he now had a shop here, and saw them off. The next day, at 4 a.m., he was back at his stove, preparing the very same soup he had served the day before. With the first light of morning, his dream came true on only the second day: drawn by the memory of that soup they had loved, the local tradesmen once again gathered and formed a queue at the door of the “Belediye Lokantası.” Shortly after the opening, a new regulation prohibited businesses from using the names of state institutions. My grandfather therefore changed the name of his shop, previously known as “Belediye Lokantası,” to “Yedi Mehmet Lokantası,” so that people would recognize and remember the restaurant by his own name. There is also another little-known “first restaurant story.” Before he had even opened the Belediye Lokantası, at the height of his dream to become a restaurateur, someone approached him and said, “Come, let’s run a restaurant together.” My grandfather began his very first venture with a partner and an apprentice. For about a month, things went very well. But later, the order of the place was disrupted by his partner’s incompatible behaviour. The partner asked my grandfather’s apprentice, “Keep an eye on him — is 7 Mehmet skimming from the till?” and word of this reached my grandfather. Furious at this disgraceful question, and true to his unconventional character, my grandfather took a sledgehammer, smashed everything in sight, handed the shop over to his partner, and walked out.