Do you remember when you had to download music, illegally? You’d fixate on a song, go on Limewire or Napster and search it, find it and play the waiting game. It may take up to 45 minutes for the song to download, depending on your connectivity. Mid-download, your aunt would ring the house and the connection would cut out. Patiently you’d wait for the conversation to end between your mum and aunt, then impatiently. Downstairs you’d run, yelling “Mum, I need the internet, can you hang up?!” Yet they’d still yap on for another 3 minutes. 3 minutes of endless hell, as your young self finds it unbearably tortuous. Clicking the dial-up modem icon on your Windows 98 again, you finally reconnect and resume the download. Only another 27 minutes to go. Then, that last remaining minute, with 99% supposedly downloaded, would drag on for another 5 minutes. Until… until, yes! Download complete! Transferring the song file to your iTunes, and onto your iPod, you could now listen to ‘Still D.R.E - Dr Dre’ whenever you wanted. Wait till my friends find out about this, they’ll all want a turn listening on our walk to and from school.
This is how I remember things.
The gratification of the lack of accessibility, the way you’d had to *earn* your way to listen to something which gave the 11-year old me absolute pleasure. It was illegal. It was hard to access. It involved my aunt hanging up in a huff. It involved the possibility of my iTunes randomly crashing and deleting all my songs with every update, and the anguish that would cause. But it was pure. Worth every effort so I could listen to that intro.
Then Spotify comes along. Every song under the Sun available with a click. The magic is gone once the novelty wears off. Instant access. Instant gratification. An abundance of options, at your fingertips. Lost value. Lost yearn for something hard to grasp. We became spoiled. We’ve been spoilt every since.
Living in North-East London, this is how I feel about Turkish off-licences. Before, there weren’t many. Now, there are tonnes, multiple found in every high street. Any dry, long-shelf-life good available to buy any day, any time of the week. The only difference now is, I am eternally grateful for their existence. Never more so during the festive season.
You see, the festive season, those 3 or 4 days where everything and everywhere is shut, is such a humbling reminder of the abundance of choice and options we have in London all the time. When it all comes to a close for Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Year’s Day, we are reminded how desperately reliant we are on our luxury of choices. Things close, and suddenly you curse yourself for not buying more milk, more toilet paper, more fresh bread, and it’s the day after Christmas and all you want is a cup of tea and toast, and the option to use the toilet without dread should the need arise. We are brought crashing down to earth, with our empty streets and closed supermarkets, like an apocalyptic scene.
Everywhere is closed. Except Turkish shops.
Do you know what Turks and Kurds call ‘Christmas Day’? They call it “Thursday”. It’s Thursday to them. They simply do not give a fuck. Britain has traditions? It is a religious holiday? Not for these hustlers - it’s a chance for extra trade whilst Tesco Express is closed. Who will supply your instant dried coffee which you neglected to top up pre-Christmas? Who will have Fairy washing up liquid for your pots and pans? Who has scratchcards if you’re feeling lucky? Turkish offies, that’s who. They are open 365 days of the week, and I bet whichever local one you go to, it’s always the same guy, or maximum, one of two guys there all the time. Their commitment to work, to trade, to earn, to provide a service to every neighbourhood, needs to be celebrated across all of North and East London. In every hour of need, they’re there. Tobacco, condoms, alcohol, dog food, baked beans, they’ll have it, whether it’s 7pm on a usual Tuesday, or New Year’s Day at 4am. They’ve got our backs, and they deserve medals.
Mangal II used to be open everyday of the week, every Bank Holiday, except New Year’s Day, when I was a kid. I’d be so excited for that day because it meant my dad would be home, and would inevitably take us on a fun drive somewhere, and we’d have his company for a full day. That was a luxury in my household.
I don’t run Mangal II the same way as my dad. I was born here, educated here, and prefer a better work-life balance like most people reading this. We close one day a week, and also during public holidays like the aforementioned, because fundamentally I don’t want my staff working any of these days.
But do you know what I did on New Year’s Day? I took my son to Green Lanes, in Haringay. A Kurdish strip of restaurant after restaurant, the San Sebastian of North London without the Michelin Stars. Free parking, we drove to eat some Döner Kebap. And guess what? Every single eatery on that road was open, and packed. Each spot was full of Turkish and Kurdish and Cypriot families, celebrating the new year with a glorious feast. Full to the brim. Whilst on the drive up everywhere else was closed, every public space, shop, mechanic, GP, post office, bank et al, driving to this pocket of North London was like a step back in time to December 30th, 2025, where it was business as usual. For these businesses, these proprietors, there were people to feed and money to be made - that simple. Did I personally want to be opening and working at Mangal II on January 1st? Hell no. But I am eternally grateful that others do. My son had Iskender and I had Döner on rice, and it was glorious. The alternative was to have frozen pizzas at home, and I knew which he and I would prefer.
As we enter this new year, I just want to express my gratitude to my brethrens, and their undying thirst for work, service, and money. Their relentless pursuit of sales. Their long hours. Their sacrifices whilst the rest of us are celebrating with loved ones. As a society we have become accustomed to the ease of accessibility, be it food deliveries in minutes, music listened to in a nanosecond, or a question answered with one Google/Chat GPT request. We have it all. And sometimes, on certain days, we’re reminded how lucky we are - when the high street closes and we crave for somebody else to cook and serve for us. To sell us a box of cereal from their off-license. In step the Turks and Kurds of North and East London. The heroes we didn’t ask for, but that we deserved. Thank you, Abi’s. May your hustle never end.