Kebapçı İSKENDER^â -Yavuz İskenderoğlu

Kebapçı İSKENDER culture, which has carried us to this moment, could be summarized as follows:

a) Difference: Roasting the pressed lamb on not a horizontal but a large vertical spit, and serving it in plates (creativity).
b) Consistency: Importance attached to quality and taste (constant communication with people for the sake of their satisfaction)
c) Permanence: A history of 139 years (making a business culture inherited from ancestors an institutional one)
d) Sensitivity to Technology: Industrial Kitchen (openness to novelties)
e) Being Educated: Uludağ University Vocational School of Technical Sciences, the Department of Meat Industry.
f) Trademark: Possessing the rights of a well-known trademark (transformation from a trademark born into a trademark created, securing the trademark and patent rights officially).

In the adventure that started with Mehmet Efendi's father İskender Dede and continued since the son made the taste known, beyond the mastery over the quality of the meat and sauces, what has always been appreciated is that public relations has a great importance.

Kebapçı İSKENDER^â -Yavuz İskenderoğlu has achieved the standardization with its trademark and concept also. Sticking to the atmosphere in the first restaurant in Kayhan Bazaar, now the floors and tables are furnished with marble, woodwork in İskender blue is used on facades, the daisy of Kebapçı İSKENDER^â and kündekari are placed in the restaurants, forks are served as wrapped in papers, grape juice is served in hygienic bottles with lids. All such details are aimed to develop and frame the concept of our restaurants today. Kebapçı İSKENDER^â -Yavuz İskenderoğlu adopts in all his restaurants and adheres himself to the seven principles symbolized by the daisy of Kebapçı İSKENDER^â  (commitment, morality, quality, constant development, reliability, difference, faith), and proudly serves his customers benefiting from the experiences of those long years characterized in the logo and with the motto of ‘service that makes difference'.

Yavuz İskenderoğlu, the chairperson of our board of management, remarks:
In order for the people who do this job to be successful, they should do it with care and love. No matter what the job is, and no matter even with how much care and love it is done, the point aimed at would be impossible to reach if the skills to integrate and share with people cannot be devloped.

Why and how have we formed that opinion? We have come to these days with what our ancestors have advised to us. They once told, "Give food to those who do not have anything to eat, for it is not always necessary to have guns and knives to kill somebody! If a woman or a child desires to eat kebab but cannot eat as he or she does not have enough money, that woman might have a miscarriage and the child might get sick. Therefore, give kebab to pregnant women and those with children". What our grandmothers say about our grandfather whenever they come here is "May he rest in peace, he would feed others even when he needed to eat himself, he would make everyone passing by taste it!" The İskender culture has been formed with such a training and discipline. Without that, İskender is nothing but a name. Kebab is an easy name to understand and imitate, which has produced the name "İskender Kebab". But no, İskender is not just the name of the food, that is "döner kebab (pressed lamb roasted on a large vertical spit)". In time, döner kebab, which once belonged to only İskender Efendi, has come to be named just "döner". On the other hand, the name "İskender" has been identified with döner and is sometimes used as if it was an alternative name for the food. However, the way we place pita, yoghurt, meat, sauce and some other things in a plate and serve it is an invention of ours, and it is how we achieve the reliability, quality and how we integrate with our customers' psychology and socialize. The İskender culture includes all these. If İskender were accepted just a kind of food served in a plate, it would not be felt the enthusiasm that has inspired that quality work of 150 years.

Deactivating the house where İskender Dede used to live in the Ottoman era was somewhat a spiritual satisfaction for us, but on the other hand, it was a good way to present to foreigners what our culture includes. While designing that model, we followed the way the trademarks in the western world were formed. People talk about their past. They tell about how they have come to these days from where they started. Then, the way for us to tell about our own past could be to perpetuate it, take people to those old days and show them where we came from. We thought that was an important step. I grew up within the İskender family and the family has always attached importance to human relations the most. I remember vaguely the days when I ushered people in before the restaurant even if I was not old enough to say, "Come in". We were taught that wearing an apron is a reason to be not embarrassed but proud and it has an important place in our history. Wearing a loincloth dates back to 1200s, the Seljuk era, and in the ancient Ahi Evren system, it means having been promoted in a job. In such an atmosphere, we learned to say to people "come in" first, welcome and salute them with a smiling face. For us, a person coming to our place is a one who has appreciated our work and honoring us. Thus; even if that person is an enemy, he is our chaste once he enters our place, and that means, "I accept you and am ready to proudly serve you". Serving comes next and the cleanliness of work is what follows. Whatever you do, the point where you begin to be clean is in your mind. A job can be done only after created in mind. No matter what the technology you use is, if you are dirty within yourself, if you do not or have not believed in being clean, or if someone has not made you believe, technology cannot remove the dirt at all. Cleanliness comes first in İskender culture. You would not be beaten for any other thing, but you would be for the sake of only that. In our family, procrastination has never been tolerated. What has been taught secondly is being agile. Even when we are hungry, we never feel free to make people wait. Here I should admit that my own family for still following that principle today sometimes criticizes me. Embracing people coming to our places means aiming to hear them thank us when leaving and feeling responsible for them until the next meal they have.

I will conclude by mentioning an anecdote that my father once told us about Atatürk: That day, Atatürk comes to Bursa. An İskender Efendi kebab is ordered. The situation is very critical, my father is told to hold the kebab with utmost care, take it in hand and then present it. He is also warned about not giving it to any other person. My father takes the kebab and goes to the place where the provincial authorities work. The bodyguards stop him and try to get the kebab. My father does not give it. They say "How dare you don't, who are you?" "I am the son of Kebapçı İSKENDER^â " my father replies. The bodyguards say nothing but "We won't let you in to see Atatürk" My father insists and says, "If you won't, then I will never give this kebab to you" and starts to behave in an aggressive way. Atatürk is informed about the situation and he says, "Let him in". When he sees my father, he says, "Thank you my son. Tell your master that I especially thank him and kiss him on the eyes." My father replies, "My father warned me. He said enemies might put anything in the kebab, so the security of the guest depended on the kebab we had cooked. He told me not to give it to anyone. I desired really much to see you with my eyes but the real reason I did not want to give the kebab was the warning of my father and any possibility that a person could have plans to harm you". Atatürk expresses his satisfaction and says, "Can you see that? This is what Turkish families, what Turkish people is and this is why I exist".

Kebapçı İSKENDER^â -Yavuz İskenderoğlu is not just the name of a restaurant or a place. It is a culture in the local sense for Bursa, and it is a culture in the international scope for Turkey.