Pizza Champion Hakki Akdeniz Opens Another Slice Joint on Hester Street
This image has been archived or removed.
Famous dough-stretcher Hakki Akdeniz is expanding his Lower East Side pizza empire. The one-time World Pizza Champion just opened another parlor at 84 Hester Street, beside the corner Chinese bodega. Newspaper clippings boasting his prowess hang in the windows, as do bilingual printouts.
The pizza joint is seemingly without proper title, identified solely by its simple white-on-red store signage. They’re currently running a grand opening sale – $2 for any pizza slice, including toppings.
Hester Street is the fifth neighborhood slice outpost for Akdeniz, behind the La Margarita (Ludlow, Cleveland Place) and Famous Hakki brands (123 Essex, 170 Rivington).
Hakki Akdeniz was crowned World Pizza Champion in 2010; his accolades apparently included fastest pizza making and best in “freestyle acrobatics.”
Recent Stories
Grave Marker Fund for Homeless Man Beaten to Death on the Bowery Last Year
It’s been exactly one year since the city was rocked by the fatal bludgeoning of homeless men on the Bowery while they slept. Of the five beaten by 24-year-old attacker Randy Santos, four ultimately died – Chuen Kwok, Anthony Manson, Florencio Moran, and Nazario Vasquez-Villegas. In the days that followed the murders, elected officials and nonprofits held […]
Fridays Under $40: Scared with a Sandwich
In our Friday column, “Fridays Under $40,” Boogie writer Sara Graham again hits the streets to find cheap eats and affordable things to do during these weird times. In this edition, we’re staying inside for under $40. After I returned from a trip to Delaware to see my parents for the first time in almost […]
And then There’s this Apartment with a Tub in the Kitchen
The standard pre-war tenement layout included a bathtub in the kitchen. It made sense, as this was the central location of plumbing. The phenomenon began with the advent of plumbing in city tenements between 1901 and 1905. With bathhouses no longer necessary to wash up, the kitchen became central. The tub here made sense given […]
International Center of Photography to Reopen Next Week
The International Center of Photography is reopening in one week. Sidelined for more than six months (almost immediately after its debut at Essex Crossing), the 40,000 square-foot museum and school is making its galleries and gift shop accessible to the public. On tap are four exhibitions to “address this tumultuous time, marked by the effects of […]
Secondhand Bookstore Comes to Orchard Street
And today, in news out of left field… There is a secondhand bookstore coming to the Lower East Side. Down at 47 Orchard Street, the former home of Anna Sheffield’s eponymous jewelry boutique. The new store is as yet untitled, but will feature used books, vinyl records, and assorted antique. “I have a large collection […]
