Allan Appel Photo
Selin Unluohen and Yigit Yorulmaz ordered a medium “margherita” with fresh tomatoes, olive oil, basil and garlic. Every penny of the $15 it cost will be hand-delivered to the Turkish consulate Friday afternoon earmarked for relief of earthquake victims.
Owner Kadir Catalbasoglu. In 1999 he opened Istanbul Cafe, the first Turkish restaurant in Connecticut.
That is the pledge of Kadir Catalbasoglu, owner of Pizza at the Brick Oven at Elm and Howe.
He estimated that customers of his unique wood-fired oven eatery would buy between $1,500 and $2,000 worth of pizza, salads, and drinks between 3 p.m. Thursday afternoon and 3 a.m. Friday.
“We want to participate in helping,” he said as business grew brisk Thursday inside the brick building surrounded by shoulder-high cords of wood destined for the oven.
The earthquake struck eastern Turkey on Oct. 23 and claimed, by official estimates, more than 600 lives.
Dwight Alderman Greg Smith, Catalbasoglu, and chef Mustafa Sahin
The day of philanthropic pizza eating was organized by Catalbasoglu with the help of Dwight Alderman Greg Smith, who ordered a medium sausage and pepperoni, $14.
Yigit Yorulmaz is president of Yale Friends of Turkey, an undergraduate organization that this year has about 16 young Turkish nationals as undergraduates at Yale. They have a weekly dinner, and on this night all were headed to Pizza at the Brick Oven.
By no means were all the patrons Turkish. Olivia Marston is a homeowner in Dwight as well as a board member of the New Haven Urban Design League, and a fan of the wood-fired pizza. However, she had just come from the doctor told her to take it easy on the pies.
So Marston ordered a small antipasto salad, a beer, and 12 chicken wings, no sauce. Total going to Turkish earthquake relief: $18.75
As he prepared subs, salads, and pies, Catalbasoglu paused to show a reporter pictures he retrieved from Turkish television and kept on his phone: a young school teacher just one week on the job who lost her life in the earthquake; a boy pulled from the wreckage alive, but with the protecting arm of his dead father still around him.
Catalbasoglu grew up near the Black Sea in Giresun, which he described as the hazelnut capital of Turkey. The quake struck 400 kilometers to the east and he lost no one in his immediate family or circle. Still he said at times like this the country is all one family.
“I feel the pain,” he said.