Turkish Cuisine and Bakery
A week and a half earlier, Galina told me, she’d helped the Cardaks enlarge the place. “We were breaking down walls till three in the morning,” she said. The two-room restaurant now has a broad expanse of red carpet and a stage at the far end decorated with a strip of multicolored lights on a pole. Our table faced the stage and was bordered on one side by a closet and on the other by a dark alcove containing a tall hookah. We placed the baby on the floor and followed him as he scooted straight for it. At 14 months old, he doesn’t get out much.
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Given the go-ahead, Cardak put in a new floor, a new ceiling, and new tile, but when he found out he’d have to submit a new application to use the parking lot in the back of the building, he gave up. He’d been waiting over a year, was over $200,000 in the hole, and still wasn’t open. He couldn’t afford to wait any longer. “I know that’s taking more than six months, that’s why I left all my money,” he said. “My ten years working is gone. If I wait another six months I will go minus and minus.” He sat down with his wife and son and considered whether they should move back to New York. His pride said stay. “I didn’t want to lose my name over there. They’re going to say he left and couldn’t make it anywhere else.”
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