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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowWelcome back to IBJ’s video feature “Inside Dish: The Business of Running Restaurants.”
Our subject this week is The Bosphorus Istanbul Cafe, the Middle Eastern eatery just south of downtown that has served as a de facto American home for owner Orhan Demirtas. The native of Turkey started working for the restaurant as a server on his third day in America (Oct. 9, 2002), and since then has taken over the restaurant and broadened its footprint and audience with a sister café.
Demirtas, 39, purchased the restaurant from its original owner, Tayfun Isik, in 2006 after serving what amounted to an apprenticeship over four years. “I learned everything; I was here more than the owner,” he said. “Other people were thinking I was the owner.”
With the reins in hand, Demirtas was able to trigger several improvements. He applied for a beer-and-wine permit (which runs about $1,200 a year), expanded both the kitchen and the front patio (about $13,000 total), and brought in even more Turkish art objects to decorate the interior.
Improvements to the top line included establishing a catering relationship with Eli Lilly and Co., whose headquarters is located just across East Street. Currently, Bosphorus makes lunches for between 60 and more than 100 people per day, for sale in Lilly campus cafeterias four days a week. The relationship brings in roughly $48,000 in sales annually—about a quarter of Bosphorus’ $196,000 in gross sales for 2010.
Early this year, Demirtas realized a long-held dream to open a hookah bar and breakfast café in the building directly south of Bosphorus. Wary of taking on the management responsibilities and spreading himself too thin, he found a silent partner who would contribute financially and take charge of running the business.
Demirtas and his partner spent $80,000 to purchase the building, and another $100,000 to renovate and decorate its four separate levels. The first level is devoted to a café-style restaurant, and the three higher levels (arranged in ascending zig-zag fashion like mezzanine levels from a central staircase) are decorated and outfitted as plush lounge areas with a deep red color scheme. Patrons can partake in smoking hookahs—water pipes with sweetened tobacco.
“At the beginning, it was slow of course,” Demirtas said. “We never expected that everybody will jump immediately. … We still are spending money from our pocket for expenses. It’s not breaking even yet, but it’s still just two months.”
Bosphorus Istanbul Café, which operates independently from the new Bosphorus Hookah Bar & Turkish Breakfast, is a break-even enterprise at the moment, Demirtas said. He draws a salary from the restaurant, considered part of its overall expenses.
“I think we are going something good, that we are still standing and I am supporting my family,” he said.
In the video at top, Demirtas discusses his work over the years to diversify the restaurant's offerings and revenue stream, as well as the development of the new breakfast cafe and hookah bar.
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