Brothers İdris and Namık Çolpan opened the Lale Restaurant, aka the Pudding Shop, in 1957. Things were going poorly for a while, when, by a stroke of tremendous fortune, it became popular with beatniks and travelling hippies. If one wants a business to be stalwartly recession proof, one should get in close with the hippies. Foregoing jokes about patchouli and trust funds, these people are rarely affected by the economy, and will bolster any business in good standing with them. Just keep that pudding flowing, daddy-o. Now there’s a repulsive sentence for the millennium. The owners of the restaurant set up a bulletin board for customers to leave messages for one another at this communal waypoint, as it was yet the time before texting. Some examples include “See you in Lisbon, Star Love!”, “I'm keeping the spoon. – Burroughs”, and “Company C has occupied Hill 427, fire for effect on TRP 9”. When technology companies moved into Istanbul, property values and, by extension, the Pudding Shop’s rent became disastrously high. The hippie-friendly restaurant became a boutique cafe for tech employees. Causing outrage, the shop raised its prices in a move still known as “Pudding on the Ritz”.
Cam Writt
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