
Hakki Akdeniz was once a homeless immigrant, without a penny in his pocket and unable to speak a word of English. Now he owns a chain of successful pizza restaurants across New York City, has over 26 million followers on Instagram, donates millions of dollars to charities, and has given a TEDx talk at Rutgers University. He is the epitome of the true American dream, a real success story, and he offers hope to anyone who is facing impossible circumstances.
Hakki is Kurdish, having begun life in the small Turkish village of Silvan. The area was economically depressed, and his family experienced poverty so severe that Hakki himself had to drop out of elementary school at the age of nine to work and help support his family. One of his jobs was working in cafes making lahmacun, a Middle Eastern flatbread topped with meat, vegetables, and a blend of spices. As a young adult, Hakki emigrated to Canada, and then on to New York City in 2001. He spoke no English and had hardly any money. A friend had lured him to the Big Apple with the promise of a job and a place to stay, but instead, Hakki found himself abandoned at the bus depot and forced to spend what little money he had on a few nights at a cheap hotel. After that, he was forced onto the streets. Cold, hungry, dirty, and in despair, Hakki finally found his way to a homeless mission called the Bowery, where he would stay for 96 nights.At last, he found a job in a pizzeria, washing dishes. He was still homeless, but soon found shelter in the corner of an apartment building boiler room, where he was allowed to sleep in exchange for performing maintenance around the building. Within a year, Hakki had saved enough to move into an apartment; and in 2003, he was finally making pizza in a restaurant in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan. In 2009, Hakki opened his own pizzeria on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
He struggled financially and his business was in jeopardy until 2010, when he entered and won a pizza-making contest. Hakki performed a jaw-dropped feat of dexterity when he spun a flaming circle of pizza dough, a trick he’d become famous for. He was featured in PMQ Pizza Magazine, and his business began to thrive. He opened a second pizzeria and settled on a name: appropriately, Champion Pizza.
Website: http://championpizzanyc.com/
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