What can a wretch like me say?
Whom shall I ask to intercede for me,
When even the just ones are unsafe?
Med Pizza, located at 1240 Washington Avenue, suddenly closed late Sunday night, April 7, 2013, after a dozen years of serving New York Style pizza to South Beach residents and visitors.
I saw the end coming, but it was premature. The pizzeria’s operator, Sadettin Ugucu, fondly known as “Jimmy,” alerted me some time ago to the fact that the lease on the narrow space was expiring at the end of May, and that the landlord, Jonathan Fryd, had demanded his departure or double the rent. Jimmy was planning on renovating the pizza joint even though he was having trouble making ends meet since the Great Recession, but there was no way he could pay $15,000 rent plus maintenance. And then he received a retroactive maintenance charge of $5,000 for what he said was negligible maintenance as far as his operation was concerned.
The landlord obviously was pushing Med Pizza out in order to revamp the shopping center, I said, for only a fool would pay that kind of rent for such a small space of around 1,100 sq. ft. Felt Billiards and Lounge next door to the north as well as Naked Pizza on the corner had closed. Rumor has it that BurgerFi has taken those spaces, therefore Jimmy and I speculated on the effect yet another pricy hamburger joint would have on other eateries nearby, including the Irish pub, which has just changed hands, between Felt and Naked.
Entrepreneurs hope there will be more traffic hence more money to go around for everyone. Old hands have reasons to be cynical; to wit: the high turnover of tenancies. Nine out of ten restaurants that I have reviewed have been closed in short order, so people say, “Do not let Walters review your restaurant.” But do not blame me. South Beach lore has it that if you are not laundering money or selling alcohol or pizza, or are not staging a place to sell to some sucker from out of town, you are likely to lose your shirt on Washington Avenue. Forget hot dogs, burgers, and burritos, and beware of the saturation point for pizzerias.
And then Jimmy discovered that the landlord had promised the Med Pizza space to David Gonzalez, the owner of Pepper’s Burrito Grill next door to the south, for even less rent than Jimmy was currently paying. Therefore we speculated on how many additional tickets Pepper’s would have to ring up at an average of $10 per ticket to cover the expansion and operating burden.
Gonzalez, I said, was known to have substantial personal backing, so perhaps the landlord considered him as a more desirable tenant for upgrading the premises and paying rent even if operating at a loss. Jimmy agreed, and said he had no hard feelings even though the landlord had scarcely said boo to him for twelve years. He admitted he had fallen behind a month on the rent at one time, so that month was subtracted from the deposit, an event he thought made the landlord mad. He rejoiced a little because the landlord’s assistant told him he had been a good tenant, anyway.
Jimmy said that he was glad to get out of the pizza business, or at least to get off Washington Avenue, which is Wild West of sorts after 10 pm. He recalled how a cop was beaten into a coma out front with one of his bar stools. And a man was arrested for urinating on his floor during Urban Week, but the judge cut him loose after the clerk told the cop who was there to testify to disappear, an event Jimmy attributed to racial favoritism. Urban Week celebrants were always a problem, sometimes grabbing pizzas from behind the counter, taking bites, and throwing them at him. A tourist was beaten to death in front of the Felt pool hall next door as witness stood by, one recording the murder on his cell phone. A fight broke out inside Med Pizza over a woman, and a cop who appeared shot a man to death out front when he pulled a pistol. More recently, a man came in and smashed one end of his display counter, cutting his hand badly. On the very night Med Pizza closed for good, a man wielding a knife chased another man out front, knocking over the tables out front, with police officers in hot pursuit.
Yanin, Jimmy’s hardworking sidekick, often complained about the “Bullshit People” from the clubs she had to deal with late nights. Besides, working around the oven for a dozen years had given Jimmy a hacking cough. And why, he asked, should he have to pay double the rent he would have to pay in some other town for the same revenue?
Now I have known Sadettin Ugucu for five years. Jimmy is an honest, hard-working, generous man. A man used to be successful for that reason alone in the good old days. Some time ago, I wrote a little review of his pizzeria, which I had frequented since I became a member of Crunch gym across the street:
“I know greasy pizza is popular, especially if it's baked in a pan, but I don't care much for it. I'd rather have a slice of Jimmy's thin-crust pizza. He puts fresh stuff on it and lays it down plumb naked in the oven. If you're having just a slice, ask him to put a little extra something on it before re-heating it. The price is right to begin with. Jimmy's a generous and hospitable fellow, but don't tell him I told you so. He's generous with words too, especially if you like to talk Turkey—he's Turkish.”
His English is admittedly not very good as it does not go too far beyond what he learned working long hours in the concession stand and pizza business. His Spanish is worse: he is most often mistaken for a Cuban because most of us do not know what a Turk looks like, and he plays Latino music on the radio. He had a sign up the other day for his special, ‘Med Pizza, $6.99 With Drink.’ I tried in vain to explain why people were demanding a medium pizza, a size that he does not sell, and a drink for that price. He curtly dismissed my plea for him to change the sign: “Med is Mediterranean.” “Okay, I guess people should have known that.”
If his interlocutor is patient, he gets the message across, and does so enthusiastically. Since I knew the end was nigh, I stopped by more frequently to chat and to have a Corona or two after my afternoon workouts at Crunch. I met some fascinating customers from all walks of life. Jimmy had time to demonstrate some of the tricks of his trade, like brushing garlic butter around the edges of the crust. Making pizza is a simple business, but not everyone knows how to make it well. A pizzeria with cigarettes, sodas, beer, and ice cream can be a money machine if the rent is right.
I asked Jimmy if he went to university in Turkey before he came to America.
“No, Mister David, I went to high school, but I am only, how is it said, half a man.”
“What? You think you are half a man? I don’t understand.”
“I have fifty-percent education, Mister David, because left and right were fighting. My school was on left. A student was killed by the right, my school closed. I had to be careful to walk around right areas when I went to school. A teacher got pregnant, the school closed. School was closed half time. So I am half-educated man. This was before generals took over in 1980, and then there was peace.”
Jimmy gave me a rough idea of Turkish politics. There were the four military coups including the one in 1980. The military’s duty was to secure secularism, national sovereignty, and democracy, the principle Western ideals of Ataturk (“father of the Turks,” General Mustafa Kemal). In 1980 the military cracked down on unions and parties, executing some leaders, torturing extremists, and imprisoned many people to boot. So there civil rights were put on the back burner until civilian government was reinstituted. His story reminded me of the two New York cops I saw break up a fight by approaching the combatants from behind and clubbing both of them into submission.
He said there was lots of corruption in the military, and that some officers grew rich off arms deals, thanks to U.S. funding since President Truman decided to support democratic majorities against violent minorities inside and out. Now two old leaders of the 1980 coup, one of them a former prime minister, the other a retired air force general, are being tried for alleged abuses, and hundreds of officers are on trial for attempting another coup. Prime Minister Erdoğan said there will be no more coups.
It took some time for Jimmy to teach me how to pronounce “Erdoğan.” He said Erdoğan is second only to Ataturk in national stature. I looked him up on my cell to discover that he had started out poor selling lemonade and wound up a billionaire with the highest salary of any public official anywhere, a million a month, someone said, which is less than what some corporate CEOs get. I noticed he had effected prodigious improvements as mayor of Istanbul, and had not instituted Muslim law as was feared then for the city, and is feared now for the nation.
“Jimmy, I don’t think Erdoğan will ever impose Sharia on Turkey. He’s a billionaire with financial interests in the world. He says Turks will be the richest people on Earth soon. Maybe we should move there and start a business.”
Well, Jimmy has been in the United States so long that he is practically a red, white and blue American. He said he would visit Turkey on vacation, and perhaps raise some money to invest in a Florida business.
Wherever he goes, I shall miss Med Pizza et al. I had hoped there would be a closing celebration at the end of May, so I was shocked to discover, on Monday, that the place had been almost cleared of all equipment Sunday night. I peered into the window. Trusty Yanin came to the door and gave me the last 6 lb. 7 oz. can of Stanislaus Full-Red Cacciatore Sauce, which I am using for a bookend for the time being.
-XYX-
And I heard a voice from heaven, saying to me:
Write: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord.
From henceforth now, saith the Spirit
that they may rest from their labors;
for their works follow them.
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