Beyti, founded 70 years ago, achieved an international success with a single restaurant. Owing its well-deserved fame to its top quality and taste meat as well as the hospitality, Beyti is a great example of the ones who do their job well in Turkey.

lthough the steakhouse concept is very common nowadays, the kebab culture has a special position in Turkey. With its unique culture and the availability to consume anytime throughout the day except the breakfast, the brands in kebab business sets the bar high in the segment. One of the most prominent and probably the oldest one of those is Beyti. Starting off with only 4 tables and 20 seats, Beyti has become an internationally famous cult hosting many local and global famous faces in the past 72 years. The founder Beyti Güler has also become a legend with his high service quality approach and with the eponym, “beyti kebab”. AFTER THE CHALLENGING YEARS… Beyti Güler is the son of a Crimean family migrated to Turkey from Romania. In İstanbul, where he arrived on a ship in 1934, he ran a baker, a grocery-store and then, a small restaurant which rooted the renowned Beyti of today. Working continuously since his childhood, opening the Beyti Restaurant, the first address of meat in İstanbul, was not only a milestone for Beyti Güler, himself, but also for the sector.

Dining the countless number of famous figures from all around the world, the walls of Beyti are full of portraits of globally well-known political and business figures. Founded with the mission of dining the coachmen of the horse-drawn carriages bringing goods to İstanbul, Beyti had a significant change since then, except its top quality meats. Beyti Güler recalls those first years: “Following the World War, there was a mobility in İstanbul. Our 4 table place had expanded up to 48 tables towards the backyard day by day. Even this was not enough afterwards. In those days, the people would come here with trains, then they’d swim and I’d sell them melons. One day, the famous journalist Burhan Felek wrote an article after he dined in our restaurant and then our name started to spread. Burhan Felek appreciated the meal so much that he titled his article ‘A meat oasis in Küçükçekmece’. After this article, our business started to grow continuously. People from different parts of İstanbul started to come by after reading this article. Ultimately, the restaurant had reached 400 seats. Back then, we also cooked grills and were one of the first places to serve döner. On each day, we used to sell 6 döner rolls, each one of them weighed around 50 to 60 kilos.” Although, the current building of Beyti in Florya had been started to be built on 1972, the new place opened its doors on 1983. Since then, Beyti carries on its business in this single location. Commenting on the reasons of running a single restaurant, the founder Beyti Güler summs, “It’s good to be sole. I can’t be everywhere simultaneously. I had offeres from

STORY OF BEYTI KEBAB During a business trip in Geneva, I stopped by at a butcher. There, I saw a steak fillet wrapped around the lamb’s back for the first time. I started to cook it after I got back to Turkey. Since that had no name, it was called the Beyti kebab.

many different places including Japan. I’d succeed if I’d go. But I chose not to leave this place. Didn’t want to expand. Never had ambitions about money. I can’t run a restaurant in which I don’t touch the meat at the kitchen and can’t care with the customers individually. I guess, the success here, to a great extent, is driven by this.” Long before the efforts put by today’s companies to make corporate deals, Beyti achieved to make an important collaboration a long time ago. With partnership initiated by the personal request of the former president of Pan American Airlines, Beyti supplied shish kebab and lamb ribs to be served in the flights. Throughout the partnership with Pan American, 1200 passengers were served on daily average for 8 years between Rome, Frankfurt, Beirut, Tehrani and Yeşilköy. Beyti Güler speaks about this partnership: “Imagine that there were no phones and faxes, back then. More importantly, we didn’t get any single complaint. We had a single control flight monthly. I used to attend those flights. This achievement also was officially rewarded. I received 4 export trophies.