Wander far enough down the winding alleyways of Pera district, Istanbul, and you’ll come across a small kebab shop sandwiched between a tattoo parlor and convenience store. Inside, the shop’s walls are covered with photos of happy customers and the dining area is small but pristinely clean. An old man in the back tends the fire in the brick oven, preparing to make lamachun, a traditional Turkish flatbread.

Ahead of my trip to Istanbul, I reached out to Badin at Hevsal Kebap to ask if I could work for him for a day. To my surprise, he agreed. This is what my shift looked like:

‍3:00pm: Prep time
‍Given that I’ve never worked in a commercial kitchen (and haven’t even used my apartment’s kitchen in months) it was decided that I’d be a prep cook. Badin hands me the largest knife I’ve ever seen and explains how to cut up beef fat that goes into making kebabs. Use a seesaw motion and hold one end of the knife still, he taught me. And so I began chopping the massive mound of fat.

‍4:48pm: Smoke break
‍With the bulk of the prep work complete, the staff gather outside for a quick smoke break. There, I met the cast of characters. Ibrahim, a grey bearded man who has been making kebabs for 25 years. Mehmet, the owner of the restaurant, a tall man who always wore a stoic expression. Elif, an adorable one year old baby, who had a habit of staring at you and then running away. 

Through Google Translate, Mehmet and I chat about the Turkish economy. Profits have been smaller recently due to the war in Iran, he explained. The price of produce has increased fast. It didn’t help that the Turkish Lira has been experiencing severe inflation in recent years, losing 85% of its value against the dollar. The prices on the restaurant’s menu are written in whiteboard marker instead of pen. Kebab prices will increase to 550 Lira next week, Mehmet tells me, after just raising prices last month. 

‍5:30pm: Family Meal
‍Badin hands me a yogurt and a lamachun, fresh out the oven. As we eat, I ask him if there’s anything he’s hoping for, what his dream in life is. “Kurdish country” he replies. Badin fills me in on how his family is Kurdish, an ethnic group which is often marginalized by the Turks. The Kurdish people are one of the largest stateless ethnicities in the world, with 18 million Kurds split across Turkey, Iraq, and Syria. Badin hoped to see a Kurdish state.

“How about you?” Mehmet asks
‍“I hope to give my family a good life and build great technology.” I reply.
“Did you study technology?”
‍“Yes, Computer Science.”
‍“Mmm, Ted engineer.”

‍6:17pm: Blackout
‍Suddenly, all the lights turn off. Istanbul’s electrical grid can be spotty, and blackouts are not uncommon. The customers are now eating in the dark, and Ibrahim starts using his phone’s flashlight to illuminate his cutting board. 

Luckily, a technician arrived to install a backup generator. Ted! Engineer! Come help! Mehmet shouted.

‍Ohhh noooo. I’m definitely not that type of engineer.

‍Realizing I would be useless in actually installing the generator, the technician asked me to hold his ladder while he installed wiring on the ceiling. He then propped his ladder against a thin ledge directly over a stairwell and told me to hold the ladder still. While I’m gripping onto this ladder with all my strength so the technician doesn’t tumble down the stairs, he hammers on a cable cover using the back of a cleaver. 

The generator kicks in, the lights turn on, and we are back in business.

‍8:39pm: Rush Hour
‍A group of twenty or so Polish college students walk in, and it’s all hands on deck to serve them. The restaurant spans three floors connected by a cramped spiral staircase, with a dining area on the second floor, the oven on the first floor, and the prep kitchen in the basement. I spend the next hour running between the three floors carrying plates of kebab and tea.

At this point, every staff member was doing every job. The dishwasher was taking orders, the lamachun chef was clearing tables, and Mehmet was running to the grocery store across the street because we had run out of cheese. It was a fascinating contrast to American restaurants, which tend to have siloed roles of hostess, server, line cook, etc. 

I speculate that this only worked because almost everyone working at the restaurant was family. To staff the shop, Mehmet had recruited his many brothers and cousins. Everyone had a vested interest in the family business doing well; There was no possibility of saying “that’s not my job.” As Badin described it, the restaurant was his duty. 

‍10:45pm: Grocery Run
‍As service wrapped up, Mehmet and I began driving to a wholesale market on the outskirts of Istanbul to buy ingredients for the next day’s dishes. He put traditional Kurdish hymns on the radio, and when I got aux, I played Kendrick Lamar. 

After half an hour of driving and another half an hour finding parking, we arrived at the market. I’m astonished to see crates of vegetables stacked up high, as far as the eye can see — imagine ten Costcos side by side. There are entire stores dedicated to selling just one crop, like a Persian cucumber store with cucumbers stacked floor to ceiling against all three walls. One full street is dedicated just to onions and potatoes. 

As you wander through this market, you’re constantly getting hit in the ankles by workers pushing carts and dodging box trucks blindly backing up. Getting from shop to shop requires squeezing between stacks of crates and the edge of a loading dock. Old men are playing cards in front of a shawarma stand and stray cats are jumping on boxes of lettuce. A fruit vendor is shouting because a semi truck just ran over a box of his pears. Mehmet runs from store to store, haggling with the vendors and precariously balancing our haul on a cart. Once in a while, he would toss a tomato to the worker pulling our cart, as a tip. It’s pandamonium.

‍1:27am: Closing shop
‍After carrying 40 crates of vegetables down the spiral staircase into the basement fridge, Mehment rolled down the steel security shutter, cracked a rare smile, and declared, “ok, complete.”