Build A Great Business, Champion A Social Mission. In That Order.

0:10Hello friends, I'm Ray Latif and you're listening to the number one podcast for the food and beverage industry Taste Radio. This episode features an interview with Haki Ekdenes, the owner of fast-growing New York-based restaurant chain Champion Pizza, who explained how the company has incorporated advocacy and support for the city's homeless community into its business model. The story of how Haki Ekdenes rose from a homeless immigrant to a struggling business owner regularly threatened with violence to a successful entrepreneur and lauded philanthropist is both heartbreaking and highly inspirational.

0:50The founder of Champion Pizza, a restaurant chain with 10 locations primarily in New York City, Haki arrived in the U.S. from Turkey over 20 years ago. His first few years in America were not pleasant. Haki lived in shelters and restaurant basements, worked menial jobs, and was even robbed of his life savings. And yet, he persevered, opening his first restaurant in 2009, and gradually added nine more, each built with reinvested earnings. As someone who's experienced the homelessness epidemic firsthand, Hockey has prioritized giving back as a pillar of Champion Pizza's business model. Every week over the past eight years, Hockey and his team have set up on West 34th Street, where they give out free pizza and other food, along with clothing and medication, to homeless people.

1:40In total, Champion Pizza has donated millions of dollars worth of pizza, but Haki intends to give more. In the following interview, I spoke with Haki about his remarkable journey, why he credits hard work and definitely not luck to his success, and why supporting a social mission starts with building a sustainable and profitable business.

2:05Hey, folks, it's Ray with Taste Radio. Right now, I'm honored to be sitting down with Haki Akdeniz, who is the owner of Champion Pizza. Haki, great to see you. Thank you for having me. Yes, it really is an honor to be speaking with you. You have done so much for the homeless community in New York and beyond. And you are someone who has been a tireless advocate for a crisis that is overwhelming parts of the United States. And it really does take folks in the private sector to really step up and create solutions for a problem that is just getting worse, it seems. And so once again, thank you so much for all your tireless dedication to addressing the homelessness issue in America.

2:52You came to the United States from Turkey. There was a stop in between in Canada, but eventually you moved to New York City. Talk about the journey from Turkey to the United States and how challenging it was for you as an immigrant coming here in those first few years. When I went to Canada, the reason I went over there, I want to stay there and obviously study. But I was never good in school. I'm always good at working, just with a hand, you know, like a. and when I went to Canada I walked with my brother at his pizza shop that's how I become pizza man but things didn't go right I couldn't get on my green card it took me so many years and then they deport me and I was gonna go either Turkey or any other country they give you option so I decided to come New York and the reason I decided to come New York my best not my best friend but of my friend he was leaving new york he always come to canada and i told him the story i get the deportation if i come new york would you help me he said yes hacking when you come new york not a problem i'll be there for you i could help you with job i could help you with a place to stay so fast forward after the petition i get the ticket january 8 2001 and i call him as i'm leaving and we'll be dead tomorrow.

4:25When I get here, I call him. I go again, fast forward. It makes me two and a half days at Port Authority Times Square. I went over there with big hope, but then my friend, he never showed up. But things happen for a reason. I always say, thank God that he didn't show up. I just get my luggage and walk around, look in hotel, at least the place just take a shower and stay i find cheap motel on 42nd between eight and nine i serve there for a couple days until my money the last day that i'm gonna pay it was daily to pay i couldn't be able to pay the last day so i moved and i would just walk on anything at timescred orders like high building lighting and i just feel maybe i was like i was like six seven days stay on the street until I find a train station and I find a train station and I stay with it like a couple of weeks on the train station as well then one guy, he's named Ronnie from Senegal he took me to a Bauri mission it's a homeless shelter on Norita so I stay with it 96 days and that 96 days it teach me a lot, it teach me so much to be like To be a good person, I will say just the best word, to just be a good human being.

5:52And because, you know, like when you don't have nothing and anything is allowed to you. And there was a moment, you know, like I was living, you know, on the street, I get up on a shelter. It was, I understand that was just not me. There's a lot of people like me and are here today. And I don't know, it was a little bit too much for me, that moment, because I get it. I grew up like very poor small village and tricky and I know how to share the plates my neighbor we have one lady she was very poor she didn't have nothing every Thursday my mom give me plates and give the food to them like trays but when I find about a message that you know like it was I understand there's a lot of people struggling there's not an option there's not choice to become homeless you know for me to be homeless it was i wish i was not but uh thank god i was a homeless actually and right now today and i pray for god that you know give me not opportunity but make me homeless that day because if i was not homeless i don't know if i could be like hockey today and you know like when i see people on the street i understand their feeling i understand their pain I understand the struggle they've been going through right now and it's not easy every Wednesday when we go to street it's been like nine years with PCNY 34th Street 8th Avenue is about like three four hundred homeless people stay in line we give them food we give them medicine we give them clothes we talk to them we give them a job so a lot of my employees right now they are homeless they used to be homeless and they worked for me so many of them they said please don't don't mention my name but i will not but um as a life we we have you know like for me to be happy i think like i should be going through like those things and for me i'm i'm just so grateful that i have everything that i ask for god everything i ask he give me triple actually not double triple and and god say you know like if you give one I will give you two if you give you two I will give you four if you give four I give maybe 10 20 so that's what exactly what I'm having right now you know I'm not so smart guy and I'm not very educated person you know like I dropped third years in elementary school I didn't go I didn't finish high school I didn't go college like you guys but uh I don't know it just I work so hard and I believe in kindness if you be kind and And God will give you like always extra and extra.

8:32Kindness is certainly important. And it's a key reason why I see a lot of entrepreneurs succeed is because they know how to treat people. They know how to treat people well. I think the other aspect that I've seen of entrepreneurs who are successful is typically they are hard workers. Typically, they know the value of putting in effort and significant effort. you were willing to do whatever it took to get to the next step and do it you know with virtue and intention versus doing it by cutting corners that's what they call entrepreneur you know entrepreneur to me like you have to earn it you have to work for it no one give it to you you have to get it and that's what exactly me i have i have to work so hard to get it it was not easy even to built a champion pizza brand sometime you know like even I cannot believe it I really cannot believe it you know like and about imagine we were outside you know I was I used to like uh recycle those cans you know so there were Chinese couple would they come with a van and they buy for us the can I think it was like four cent or five cent each can we want to give it to them so I was making about like 10 bucks 15 20 a day because I used to just go to garbage and collect all those cans today you know like our name is those can you know i mean i know it's not it doesn't make sense you know like it's so many years like 20 years as hard work behind that but uh any entrepreneur they have to work work so hard to earn it me i get it i work so hard i get everything i get it but if you know what's purpose of life that you you want money for why you work so hard where every morning you wake up, you know the reason that you wake up that you got to go work for.

10:21And for me, like I always said, two things very important for me in life. My family, I love them so much. I have a wife, I have two before kids. But the other side, people are less fortunate. They need our help a lot. And the second thing and most important thing in life for me is homeless people on the street. I mean, like homeless is a name, like nothing. They have just hope. nothing else. To be in the position to help as many homeless people as you are helping, to be able to employ them, you had to build Champion Pizza to what it is today, a 10-store chain of restaurants. And I think one of the other things about entrepreneurs who are good at what they do is that they learn their craft.

11:11They learn the business they're in. In some cases they're experts in the business that they're in. You weren't automatically someone who knew how to make pizza and run a pizza restaurant. You had to learn the craft. I know you used to make lahmacun in Turkey, which is sort of a flatbread with ground meat on it, but that's not necessarily the same thing as pizza. You know, talk about the process of learning how to, one, make pizza, which I know you're very good at, and two, actually build a pizzeria chain. Yes, I'm a pizza guy. I know like making the best pizza. But of course, there's a lot of people that make better than me.

11:50There's a lot of legend up there. But to run a business is totally different. Totally was different for me. First, when I opened my pizza shop, I bought the pizzeria from someone, old Albanian guy, but everybody know him as Italian from local pizzeria. I bought a pizza shop from$85 ,000 and I have only$45 ,000. I just keep$5 ,000 because I want to get the sign, make a menu, open corporation. And I give them$40 ,000. So I only$45 ,000. Nine payments, I have to give them$5 ,000,$5 ,000,$5 ,000. Locations are great. Locations are beautiful. On Lowery Side, I still have that place on the first pizza shop.

12:32I bought it. And the first month, I was busy. so I'd be able to pay my rent and I'd pay him. The second month, I was a little bit done. The third month, my business would go down. The fourth, I was losing money. I couldn't be able to pay rent and pay my payment. Do you know why you were losing money? What was it about your business that wasn't working? That guy, he's old school, Italian guy, and the Turkish guy took over. And then I don't know nothing about running a business. Like I told you, entrepreneur, you have to earn it. And I don't know nothing. you know like i don't know how to get a permit but not together i even when i put cooperation i make mistake cooperation i get big tickets but uh the previous owner he was going to kick me out you know like he was so mean to me beginning later right now he become my best friend i was about to close my store i was about to close it i give up my apartment and i just live in store i don't want to give up but uh you gotta work so hard brother to make it happen.

13:30That store, if I couldn't make it happen, because to give up, it was not an option. I couldn't give up. Then Allah took me to court to kick me out. But thank God, you know, like I won the pizza championship, the PMQ magazine, they put me in cover magazine. And that magazine saved me, saved my store. Yeah, let's talk about that for a second, because you were running the pizzeria, which at the time I think was called hockey pizza, wasn't it? Yeah. But there is a famous This pizza convention, which is held annually at the Jacob Javits Center, included within this convention is a pizza tossing competition.

14:08And you had a very amazing demonstration that helped you to win the competition and eventually helped you to build a stronger brand. Talk about exactly what you did to win the competition and how it landed you on the cover of that magazine. There's two reasons. One, I have to get on my green card to become citizen, you know, to represent, oversee the U.S. Second, they say if you win, you know, like the championship, obviously, if you win, you get the money. I didn't go over there to the championship to be like, you know, newspaper or to get like, you know, the cover magazine. I went over there, burned myself to get the money because I did the flaming.

14:48And that flaming, you know, I put the flame on the doorstep in there. I really get, but if you watch the video, all my left arm was burning. My eyebrow got burned. So to win the championship, you have to do a lot of different tricks. What I did, I did like over like 50 different tricks. Like, you know, like I put like handcuffs on my hand. I did like blindfold. I did like with the flame, break dancing. And I just did like over the shoulder, under my leg, all different tricks. So I went the fastest. I did like five pieces in 44 seconds. I did like a freestyle. I did the testing and we did like the largest door stretch.

15:28So I won the world championship. When I won that one and they put me cover PMQ magazine. And that magazine one, they sent me like about, I think it was like 10, 15. Right now I still have a lot with me. So I put it on top of my table on the pizzeria. And the kids from school, they like the magazine. and they take it. And I told my piece of guy, I said, what happened to my magazine? He said, oh, the kids, they take it. And I put it back again, the kids, they take it again. So it finished. So I called PMQ Magazine, the founder, Steve Queen. And I told him the story. I said, is there any way that he can send me like some boxes?

16:07And I will pay for it, even if I don't have money. I still own the money, by the way. But I saw him, I saw him in the last magazine. I make the joke, he said, you deserve it, brother. it so they sent me like two cases the box and i get this magazine i go front of the school and i give the kids and all the kids they love it and i never forget that there was a little girl they came with a magazine and she told me would you give me an autograph i don't know what mean autograph and i cannot pay my rent i'm sleeping in my store i was still sleeping under my store yeah i used to go to gym take a shower my employee card i will tell you the story so she told me like autograph I said okay all right thank you very much I don't know what else to say I write thank you very much I give magazine to her next day the kids they came with magazine that time I don't know if 2010 selfie was very famous so they take selfie with me afternoon they take selfie so the people they start bringing the magazine to me and you know take a picture and autograph and those kids they bring their parents and that's why their store I become so busy i become like the famous pizza shop on lower inside everybody was talking about me so the previous owner of his area that he wanted to put me in an oven he was so angry because i couldn't be able to pay him i mean i didn't pay him for three months he was so pissed he said if i don't pay this month i'll put you in the oven oh geez not really really like you gotta see he look like Scarface.

17:39I love him. He's my best friend right now. I always make a joke for that. So he came there and he said, I have a big line. He said, what happened? Are you giving free pizza? I said, no, I just, I've been so blessed. All the kids, they love, they come in. He said, wow, God bless you. You smart guy, huh? Two, three, four months, I was sleeping in my store. Today for me, it's like hotel, five-star hotel, believe me. Because when you need to, you have to, you You know, I don't do bad things. I just like, all I wanted to be success. All I wanted is like my dream went up in my pizza shop. I told you, me, my manager, my old manager, we worked together for four years.

18:17We saved money, four years. And my goal went up in my pizza shop. I told you, I don't know if you know the story. Four years, we saved money. Me, my best friend from 2002 to 2006, my best friend, he took all our save and ran away. Oh no. Yeah. Yeah, so you know, like, I mean, two days before we were going to sign a contract, we find a place and operate a beautiful location. We were going to buy it. And I mean, best friend. I love him. Until today, I still love him so much. Two days before he take all our savings, he run away. You know, I mean, so like, I always want to work so hard to save money and to be able, you know, to open my business, live in America's dream, you know.

19:02That guy, I was, the day he stole all money, he run away. I was praying God. I said, God, please punish him like what he did. But today I said, God, please forgive me what I say. You know, just save him. Make sure, like, I'm sure he take this money for, you know, like for a reason. You know, maybe that money right now, he need more than I do. I can tell it affects you. And I'm sorry that that happened to you. And, you know, I think you're right in so many ways in that maybe there was a reason that he needed that money. and maybe he needed it more than, you know, you could realize at the time. But, you know, for all the hardships that you faced, I think there's another one.

19:43I mean, there's another challenge that you face and it's something that you can't do anything about. It's, I'll just call it what it is. It's racism. You came to the United States in 2001. I think it was eight months later was when 9-11 happened. And unfortunately, people of color, people of Middle Eastern descent were dramatically impacted because everyone was just associated with the people who planned these attacks. You know, how has it been managing being an immigrant and being someone of Turkish descent as you're building a business, as you are an entrepreneur? It was not easy, brother. 20, 21 years ago, and, you know, like all you come over here to just struggle, you know, to live America's dream, to be able to just be safe, just to get food on your plate, you know.

20:37And we all immigrants come over here and work so hard to become somebody, to do something, you know, to have family, to be able to live a better life. Because overseas, when we say, like, America is America, it's like a huge, it's a big dream. You know, it's huge. Believe me, if you go overseas and you ask every human being, they will say same thing is huge but if you don't work so hard you know like america dream is not dream you know i i know it's like no like there's no such other country dream like germany dream or french dream turkish dream you know there's only one dream we call america dream but if you don't work so hard and you don't believe yourself i don't think there's you know like you could be able to live their dream.

21:25You have to work so hard to get it. And for me, I always say, for the young kids, for everyone, love it. Love whatever you want to do. Love it and believe it. Those things, if you love and you believe it, that is American dream. But if you don't love what you do and you don't believe what you do, there's no such a dream. You're just going to go work and come home and that's it. Having a dream is important. Being a hard worker is important. Being a little bit lucky, particularly when it comes to building your own business is also important. But also, no. I'm so sorry, but no, no, brother. You know, luck is, if you work so hard, there's a lot.

22:08If you don't work, there's no such a lot. You got to work so hard to be lucky. I'm sorry, you know. No. I'm glad you interrupted me because a lot, Almost every entrepreneur that I've ever spoken with has said that luck has played a role in the success of their business or their own personal success. And if you're watching the video, you sell hockey, interrupt me. Not interrupt me, like stop me in my tracks and say, no, it's not luck. So you don't believe in luck. We have to believe it. But the hardest work you work, you're lucky you become. If you don't work hard, there's no such a luck. You know, like I stay home all day, I don't do nothing.

22:46There's no such a luck. If I work so hard, like I say, if I believe what I do, the luckier will become. Just work and work, work, work. And if you don't have any plan, if you don't have any dream, if you don't have any goal with that dream, there's no such a luck. You know, like you make that luck for yourself. You got to be believing. You got to be like, you know, like always believe. And if you believe, the luck has come to you. You know what I mean? And I think, you know, like, if you're not a kind person, the luck you have to go away too. You're going to be kind. You're going to be very kind.

23:21You have to have pure heart and the luck will come to you. But if you don't work for that luck, they don't come to you. And again, I think this goes back to one of the first things I wanted to talk to you about, which is in order to help other people, to get them to a place where you can hire them so they can work hard and, you know, work in your stores and perhaps even build their own businesses, you have to build a strong, sustainable business, you know, to meet that vision. In order to help all those people that you help on 34th every week, your businesses have to produce money. They have to produce a profit.

24:02So after you built that first store on the Lower East Side, and after you built it into a sustainable restaurant and a business. How did you think about building Champion as a chain? You know, what made you think that you could go from that one store to eventually where you are with 10? What did it take to get there? I just love it. I enjoy everything. When I wake up and when I go to store, when I see just, you know, like the pizza on the pizza shelf on the counter display it make me more happy and to open the first one it was so hard for me like i mentioned earlier it was not easy i gave up like so many time i bought two but i couldn't it was not option i couldn't do that because i have like only one chance in life to be able to be success to get my green card to leave this country and to be able to live better life you know and That was the only chance that I have it.

25:02I have to make the champion pizza, I mean, Huggies pizza, the first one, be success. So be able to open second one. To open champion pizza because I won the championship, that was the reason I changed the name. The first one, it was hard. But the second one, I think, was a little harder. Because the second one, the neighbor, the people over there, they, oh boy, they were about to kill me. They put a gun on my hand. Wait, what? I was like, yeah, yeah. The second one, when I opened my pizza shop, the neighbor on the same block, we have a pizza shop. I'm not going to say who, which pizza we are, but, you know, they broke the windows.

25:42Two times they broke all my windows. And one time the guy come put out, when I go home, open door to go home. And the guy, just when I open the door, right from, and he pushed me on the wall, two guys. He pointed the gun at my hand and said, you know what? I'm telling you do not open the pizza shop and you open you better not open close and the second one it gave me a hard time brother the second time I was about to die like this close but you know what I don't want to close it I said no you know what you know I'm gonna leave open you guys want to kill me kill me and then that one time you know like I was like I'll never forget Sunday I want to clean the store two guys they came over there and there were like no cover face again and they came like, you know, like come inside the counter and there was the cops, the cops, you know, they came, they was over there and they run away.

26:34They didn't do nothing. So I was lucky that they took a little bit, you know, so. That's when luck was important, when the cops were there. I think it was a lot, but I will say like, God bless me. It was not like it was a God. And I told you, things happen for a reason, man. As much as this happened, I believe it is like karma. if you're a good person you will always find good people always always good things good people good business everything will come to you you know i mean nobody believe me but like i say no i always believe myself and those my friends some of them they still own money they owe me money you know even they don't believe me but uh just you man believe in yourself have a go hard and work so hard like i said always when you have a goal make sure you have a plan for that goal you know like not just dream no like you're goalie but with every dream you have to have a goal when you achieve that goal and that's it you know so you have to have like a reason for that goal too and if you have those like one two three four steps i think like nothing can stop you anything that's possible anything always always i know like we may not like be able to help everyone in this country and anyone but if we help like anyone everyone can help anyone just a little bit i say i was a little bit it's a lot you know i mean believe or not i'm not here today to become so rich and to be like you know like people call me like rich man i hate that name i hate people when they call me Haki is an efflucer.

28:13And I hate that. People, when they call me Haki, he's a very famous guy. I hate that. I want just one thing. People call me good man. He was a good person. Not man. Good person. He was a very good person. Oh, he's a good person. That's the name I want to. I want to leave legacy behind me. Not money. Not, you know, like, when I'm down from here, I want people to talk. You know, that person, he was really good for everyone. Not just for himself. So I heard once from someone who is a famous motivational speaker, not Tony Robbins, someone else, someone asked him, you know, what's the purpose of life?

28:46And he said he thought about that question a lot. And he came to the conclusion that you can't take anything with you when you're dead. Everything in life is going to be someone else's when you're dead. So he said the purpose of life is to give. And I think that's, you know, your purpose in so many ways is with Champion Pizza, it's not to enrich yourself. You already have everything you need. Now what you want is to build this chain, to build this business, to be able to deliver on the mission, to be able to achieve the social mission that you have set out for yourself and for the business in addressing the homelessness crisis.

29:28Do you have a certain percentage of sales or profits that you give back or that you give to address this social mission? Is it something that's concrete or is it just saying, you know, we'll just give as much as we can whenever we can? There's no such a like number exactly, but we can't like the slices. So my goal, they hit one million slice. And I think it will finish like end of next year. It will be like one million slices. I'm not going to say exactly how many right now. We do like every week. Every week is like, no, like nine years. So we do like, no, like I have like a three program. One is a front of church on Valencia.

30:10We do this like weekly about like, I would say like between 25 to 40 pie. I have another one. I call it like Cedar Relief. We give it to them like, no, like sometime like weekly, like 40, 50, depends they want it. And the one at 34 shoot every single week, that one every Wednesday. I do about like 30 to 60 pies. So like 40 pie, 45 pie, you know, 50 pies, sometimes 55, 60 pies, but no less than 30 pies. Because like 3, 400 people, everybody needs to get like at least like two slices. So you count it, you calculate. Like I said, it's not about like, you know, like the number is about like how much can we give?

30:51You know, like I was, I told one time, I think it was for CNN or New York Times. They said, how rich you are. I said, no, no, it's not about how much I have. It's about how much can I give. And that's what I exactly know. Like, I'm not a special guy. You know, like, I'm not science. You know, like I told you, I'm not a smart guy. It just, everybody can do like I do. You know, it's easy. It's so easy, man. You know, like, the population is like, this country, like, I think 340 million, I believe. But we got like 1 million homeless people living on the street. And if we, 339 million people, united to be together, I think there will be no such one homeless person on the street.

31:31Haki, I am so glad that we had this opportunity to speak. I feel like this is a different kind of interview than I've ever had. And we've done 500 episodes of the podcast, and I've interviewed probably 750 people. But this is the first time, I think, where, you know, the emphasis on the conversation wasn't just about business or business fundamentals. It was so much of it was about who you can be as a human being, how you can live a better life and help other people through your business and then through your personal will and desire. Thank you so much for taking the time to be with me today. I really appreciate it.

32:12Once again, thanks for everything that you're doing for the homeless community. And I hope we can meet in person someday. I'd love to stop by one of your stores. I would love to.

32:24That brings us to the end of this episode of Taste Radio. Thank you so much for listening. And thanks to our guest, Haki Ekdenes. Taste Radio is a production of BevNet.com Incorporated. Our audio engineer for Taste Radio is Joe Kratchy. Our technical director is Joshua Pratt. And our video editor is Ryan Galang. Our social marketing manager is Amanda Smirlinski. And our designer is Amanda Huang. Just a reminder, if you like what you hear on Taste Radio, please share the podcast with friends and colleagues. And of course, we would love it if you could review us on the Apple Podcasts app or your listening platform of choice.

32:59Check us out on Instagram. Our handle is BevNetTasteRadio. As always, for questions, comments, ideas for future podcasts, please send us an email to askattasteradio.com. On behalf of the entire Taste Radio team, thank you for listening, and we'll talk to you next time. Thank you.