The Story Behind the Name: Why 7 Mehmet?

Many people who hear it for the first time ask the same question: “Where does the seven in 7 Mehmet come from?” What kind of fate brought the number 7 and Mehmet together to give the restaurant its name? Grandson Mehmet Akdağ explains why his grandfather, born in 1916, carried this name: “When my grandfather was seven years old, he was orphaned after the death of his father, İsmail Hakkı Çavuş. His mother took him out of school while he was still in the first grade and placed him with Hacı Hasan so that he could learn a profession; Hacı Hasan had once served as one of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s cooks and was running a restaurant in Antalya at the time. Meanwhile, in the 1920s, the use of automobiles, motorcycles or bicycles was not yet common among the people of Antalya, so travelling from one place to another was generally done on horseback, on donkeys, or on foot. One day, while my grandfather was on his way somewhere, he fell off a donkey. The donkey then kicked him, leaving a wound just above his forehead shaped like the letter V; this shape closely resembles the way the number seven (٧) is written in Ottoman Turkish. Let us return to Hacı Hasan… He was a very meticulous and extremely careful man in his work. One day, when he found a strand of hair in one of the dishes that was about to be served to a guest, he became furious with the staff. To teach everyone a lesson, he ordered the entire team to shave their heads with a razor. While delivering his “never let this happen again” speech, he said to my grandfather, whose scar had now been revealed, “Do you know what the mark on your forehead means? This scar looks very much like the number seven — so you are 7 Mehmet!” And that is how this story, written by destiny, began…