Monday

Istanbul’s Burger Battle Goes International

As we’ve previously chronicled, the Tünel end of Istanbul’s famed İstiklal Caddesi was some two years ago the site of a heated burger war. It all started when a former Turkish basketball-player-turned-restaurateur who had spent time studying in California opened up Mano Burger, a mostly successful recreation of the kind of burger joints the owner frequented in the United States. Mano was only in business for a few months when a rival emerged a few doors down in the form of the more upscale Dükkan Burger, part of a mini-chain that was affiliated with what was at the time Istanbul’s trendiest butcher.

For a while the rivalry burned white hot, but then, suddenly, it flamed out. Mano, squeezed between a problematic landlord and Beyoğlu municipal inspectors unhappy about burger smoke wafting over Tünel Square, threw in the towel and closed down. Meanwhile, Dükkan’s business model of charging high prices while continually lowering the quality of the meat it served finally did it in. Tünel had suddenly turned from a sizzling burger battleground into a burger graveyard.

The rest of this new post can be found on CulinaryBackstreets.com, here.

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