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Yes, boss? At two in the morning inFreshers’ Week, these can be themost reassuring words in the

world. You may have lost your friends.You may have ‘lost’ all your money. Andif you’ve been to Ziggy’s, you will havedefinitely lost your dignity.

But you’re leaning against agleaming metal work surface, staring ata menu board that refuses to stop rotat-ing and you’re trying to explain that youwant an Al Funghi pizza without mush-rooms.

Congratulations, you’ve become astereotypical student. But how easy is itto stereotype our favourite post-lashhaunt - the takeaway? And what do thesleep deprived men who have to shovelpizza after pizza think of us, the drunk-en rabble that we can be?

If you’re hearing the words "yes,boss", you’re in Efes, the takeawaythat‘s short on possessive apostrophesbut literally giving away free cans ofPepsi.

If you were a student 15 years ago,you would have found a small pizzatakeaway that closed well before York’sclubs. Then from the sunny climes ofIstanbul in Turkey came Mr Efe Aktaf,his brother Naci, and their cousinsEmre and Mete, the latter of whom

now manages Efes. Mr Efe has workedin takeaways his entire life, and is nowproviding for himself, his wife and histwo daughters, aged five and ten.

After 15 years of topping pizzasand wrapping kebabs together, Meteclaims the family unit still get on per-fectly fine, although Mr Efe admits itcan be hard not seeing his children. “It’sdifficult but I try to make time - wakeup early or go to be bed later - so I canhave an hour to just play and spendtime with them.”

But Mr Efes is not immune fromnagging: “Sometimes my wife getsannoyed at me - why are you workingevery day? Why are you working every

day? I’m trying to run a business!”But what does Mete, manager of

the self-proclaimed “number one stu-dent takeaway in York”, think of youwhen you sway towards his counter at

Far left: Kaja ofChubbies,

Above: Mr. Efeand employee, Far right, top:

the gentlemenof VikingKitchen.

Far right, mid-dle: Kaja and

parner. Far right, bot-

tom: VikingKitchen

The kings behind the kebabsThese men have seen us when we are at our worst.Richard Lemmer investigates the stories behind

York’s favourite takeaways .

“We try to close and peoplewant to get in for food. Theyget angry, banging on the win-dows, shouting abuse”

www.ey.com/uk/careers 23/02/10 www.ey.com/uk/careers

three in the morning? “We know students like to party,

and we understand this. They go out,get drunk, enjoy themselves, get somefood, then go home and go to bed”.Then be sick, miss lecture and panic-library-cram come essay or exam time,but I‘m not going to tell Mr Efes aboutthat.

The mentioning of partying leadsMr Efes to ask, “Where is Brendon? Inever see Brendon anymore,” - Brendonbeing a mutual friend who proudly dis-plays an Efe’s polo-shirt on his wall.

The partying stamina of studentsis just one of the many abilities thatimpress Fatih and Mehmet of York’sOnly Yummy Chicken.

“How do you do it?” Mehmet,Yummy Chicken’s manager, asks me.“How do you party, party, party andthen work the next day?” If the studentis like me, I say, they sometimes missout on whole 'next day' thing.

. “That makes sense. Students arethe best part of our job,” Mehmet says.

We’re witty and charming at threein the morning? Really?

“Students are always very friendly.And they are educated. Some peopledon’t want to know anything about us,or anything, really.”

Educated we may be, but we canstill be cheeky. “Cheeky, cheeky,” Fatihsays as he takes several pizzas out ofYummy Chicken’s oven.

“Students are always looking forthe cheap way,” Mehmet says. “Give itfor free, give it for free! Any discount?Any discount?” Mehmet shrugs. “Butwe understand, and we like the stu-dents, because if there’s no students,there’s no business. They’re drunk, Ican understand.”

Fatih finishes removing the pizzasand laughs: “One student came in andbought a can of Sprite and asked forstudent discount. They’re 70p! I toldhim no. He was just drunk and cheeky.”

At Efes, Mete agrees. “Students arefun people. We know people’s names,we know the jokers, we know who likesto have a laugh. People always want a t-shirt, they’re always begging, I’ll pay forit, I’ll pay for it! And we’re like, sure, it’sjust a t-shirt.”

Unfortunately, some studentsarrive at Efes in no fit state for clothesshopping. “Some students order theirfood and then they forget,” Mete says.“Sometimes they just walk off.Sometimes they come in and order aburger. Then we will have a pizzacooked for someone else, and the burg-

er guy will say, 'yes that’s mine, thankyou Mr Efe'.

Sometimes we say, 'No, youordered a burger, remember?' Othertimes they get the pizza and the personwho ordered the pizza gets very con-fused when we give him a burger. Wetry our best, but we can get very busyand students can be very drunk.”

Unfortunately, not everyone whovisits York’s takeaways are so under-standing of students or takeaway staff.Mehmet explains that locals often gripeabout the student nights at Gallery. “Ifpeople come from Gallery, and we say,'Where you been guys?', sometimesthey say, 'Gallery, but it was shit, it wasfull of students.'”

But Mehmet and Fatih have tobear the brunt of locals’ drunken angeras well. “One time, someone was look-ing at the board and we said, 'Whatwould you like?' and he said he wasokay, then five minutes later we askedhim what he wanted, and he said hewas okay but he was still looking at theboard. Then ten minutes later he cameup to us and said, 'Where‘s my fuckingfood?!'”

Mehmet sighs and says,“Sometimes the local people don’t likeus. They come in and have a go aboutforeign people, and we are foreign peo-ple!” Yet Mehmet and Fatih are proudof where they live. “We are York peopletoo,” they tell me. Mr Efes has alsoworked hard to become a British citi-zen, and he has no interest in everreturning to Istanbul. “I have no life inTurkey,” he says, “I’d have to start fromzero.”

Casual racism is a subject thatMete has no time for. “We do get somereally nasty calls,” Mete admits. But hedoesn’t dwell on their content, just thetype of character who calls up a take-away to racially abuse the staff.

“It’s just people who are sad andhave nothing to do. If one of the otherguys here answer the phone, they liketo wind the caller up. If I answer it, Ijust say, 'Stop being sad and do some-thing else with your life.'”

Are calls like this common?“Maybe once or twice a week,” Metesays in matter-of-fact tone.

Yet not every takeaway has to dealwith nasty calls. Kaja, manager ofChubbies on Hull Road, says his take-away hardly ever has any prank calls.Kaja puts this down to his reputation inthe local area. “People know me, fami-lies know me,” he explains.

For over 20 years, Kaja has worked

on a takeaway on Hull Road (his broth-ers for 15 years, then six years manag-ing Chubbies), and now he works most-ly alone. “Five days a week I work herealone. My daughter works here week-ends, and my girlfriend helps out some-times, but I can manage myself.” Ratherthan being lonely, Kaja enjoys talkingto families that come to his restaurant,watching the kids muck about, the dadsworrying they’ll spend too much or getthe order wrong.

But why do they choose Kajainstead of the other takeaways on HullRoad? “People know me after 20 years,”Kaja says.

In a city with over 70 takeaways,reputation is everything. Yet in recentyears, small takeaways and kebab shops

have become synonymous with bingeculture. More specifically, violent bingeculture.

In 2007, The Independent labelled“the fight outside the kebab shop” a“minor British institution”. Councilsseems to agree there is a correlationbetween kebab shops and fights, withmost councils fining “violent take-aways” up to £20,000.

Kaja claims to have never seen anyviolence outside his takeaway. Metefinds the stereotype totally unfair:“With takeaways, we don’t sell alcohol,its about food. Families come here withtheir kids. Touch wood, we’ve never hadany violence in here … another part oftown maybe.” Mr Efes recalls one inci-dent when a student was mugged andbeaten with a hammer less than 20metres from his shop.

“We could hear some trouble andcame out and brought the student intothe shop to make sure he was okay.” Butthere has never been any violence withcustomers inside or just outside theshop, Mete is keen to point out.

But in another part of town, theYummy Chicken’s staff are moreresigned to the idea of takeaway vio-lence. “Sometimes we talk and sort itout,” Mehmet says, “Sometimes we haveto call the police, sometimes we dosome fighting!”

He gives me a cheeky wink andlaughs. Any scars? “Not yet,” Fatih says.“But we know what drunk people arelike,” Mehmet says. “We have peoplecome back the next day and say sorrybecause their friend told them they didsomething bad or they said somethingnasty.”

Instead of loving binge culture,Mehmet hates it. He understands hisbusiness relies on his customers havinga few drinks, but for him, it doesn’tmatter if they leave a club at midnightor three. “A couple of years theychanged the clubs’ opening hours,” heexplains.

“Now sometimes they stay openwhen he have to close. We try to closeand people want to get in for food. Andwe can’t let them in and they get angry,banging on the windows, shoutingabuse. It’s bad for business.”

Adam at Viking Kitchen hasanother reason for hating clubs’ lateclosing times. “The long hours can killyou some nights. You have to be friend-ly to people, so they want to come back,but it can be really hard if you’re verytired.”

Considering how late most take-

aways stay open, it is easy to under-stand why Adam thinks “there is noth-ing fun about working in a takeaway”.After hearing this, I don’t have theheart to tell him ‘Goodrick‘, ‘Alcuim’and ‘Vanburg’ colleges exist only on hismenu board.

But at the end of the night, whilstyou’re still trying to decide if you wantham and pineapple, the takeaway justwants to see you leave happy.

During the summer, when we gohome, Efes sometimes has to cut itslosses and shut up shop.

Yet they’ll wind up back behindthe same workbench, at one in themorning, still smiling, serving the samefood to students too drunk to remem-ber what they ordered. M

“Students are fun people. We know peo-ple’s names, we know the jokers...peoplealways want a t-shirt. They’re always beg-ging ‘I’ll pay for it, I’ll pay for it’”