We were sad to hear news that a Beşiktaş – well, an Istanbul really – institution faces possible closure. Pando Kaymak, a favourite breakfast spot that makes its venerable kaymak (clotted cream) on premises has been given an eviction notice, as reported by Culinary Backstreets on Friday. The café, which is featured in our ‘The Sultan’s New City’ guide in Cornucopia 51 and which is the usual breakfast spot for the author Health Lowry, has apparently been given until August 15 to vacate. The café is operated by the 90-plus year old Pandelli Shestakof and his wife, and Pando Amca, as he is affectionately known by the neighbourhood’s locals, has been sitting outside his blue-washed café with jars of honey and fresh eggs adorning its window and welcoming customers for over 50 years (he took over from his father who has owned the shop since 1895, by Culinary Backstreet’s accounts).
The famous kaymak at Pando Kaymak (photo: Istanbul Eats)
Culinary Backstreets also reported that the reason for the eviction is that Pando’s landlord wants to replace the café with yet another kiosk that sells gum, cigarettes, newspapers and other bibs and bobs. In his column two days ago in Today’s Zaman, Berk Çektir, a lawyer and a journalist, says that the eviction is justified due to “a revised code of obligations that allows the landlord to ask the tenant to evict the premises if the rental agreement has surpassed ten years”. So instead of valuing a long-term tenant (and one that has been there for a rumoured 120 years), the landlord decides to evict him. That’s loyalty for you. After receiving the news, Çektir immediately visited Pando and is now trying to find out whether Pando has any legal rights to stay on premises. He thinks the best solution is for the landlord to “cooperate with Pando to preserve cultural heritage” and enlisting the help of a vakıf (foundation) that cares about food and cultural heritage. Culinary Backstreets also reports that Pando family’s main concern is to save the 19th-century shopfront from destruction rather than Pando’s business itself.
Harvard student and an expert in Ottoman agricultural practices, Aleksandar Sopov, who has spent last summer and is spending this summer fighting the good fight for the preservation of the Yedikule bostans shared this gem on his Facebook page: ‘You will not read in the Culinary Backstreets article that Pando and his wife Yovana still speak the dialect spoken in the Macedonian village which their ancestors abandoned in the 19th century. Running away from economic hardships and exploitation, thousands of Macedonians settled in Istanbul at the end of the 19th century to work as gardeners, dairy-producers and bakers; cheap labour for a growing city that had to be fed. The descendants of those people are forced to leave again. Deep in that delicious clotted cream covered in honey there is so much bitterness.’ He added a #savepando tag which already has numerous retweets on Twitter. Well said, Aleks. If the eviction happens, it will be ever so sad. We can get a pack of gum or a newspaper at any old newsstand, but Pando’s kaymak is unparalleled. Isn’t it worth saving?
Main image source: mimarizm.com