Hakki Akdeniz

Hakki Akdeniz is a Kurdish restaurateur and pizza chef. He is owner and founder of the pizzeria chain Champion Pizza in New York City.[1][2][3][4]

Hakki Akdeniz
NationalityKurdish
Occupation(s)Restaurateur, pizza chef

Biography
Hakki Akdeniz, building pizza

In 1997, Hakki moved to Montreal, Canada and worked at his brother’s pizzeria. He moved to New York in 2001 and started working at a pizzeria until 2005. In 2009, he founded his first pizza shop in the lower east side of Manhattan, which was later named Champion Pizza. Soon later, he was featured in a cover article in PMQ Pizza Magazine with thousands of copies in print.[1] As a pizza chef, he is known for his flashy acrobatics in tossing and twirling dough, flaming or otherwise and for building giant pizzas. Akdeniz received media attention by his charity works in support of homeless.[5]

Awards and honors

He received a total of 12 awards. In 2019, he received the Beacon Award from The American Immigrant Society. In February 2022, he gave a TED talk at Rutgers University titled Homeless Not Hopeless; it has received over 1.3 million views as of August 2022. [6]

References
  1. Wilson, Michael (October 11, 2019). "'I Know the Struggle': Why a Pizza Mogul Left Pies at Memorials to 4 Homeless Men". The New York Times. Retrieved July 2, 2022.
  2. Nelson, Anna (December 22, 2019). "From Homeless to Millionaire: The Story of a Kurdish Pizza". Voice of America. Retrieved July 2, 2022.
  3. Schapiro, Rich (February 1, 2017). "NYC pizzeria owner who came to U.S. as refugee offers 100". New York Daily News. Retrieved July 2, 2022.
  4. Yvonne Ergil, Leyla (January 9, 2020). "The newest food achievements by Turks abroad". Daily Sabah. Retrieved July 2, 2022.
  5. Romine, Taylor (October 14, 2019). "He used to be homeless. Now, he's trying to support the New York homeless community after a crisis". CNN. Retrieved July 2, 2022.
  6. Yuruk, Betul (November 1, 2019). "US: Turkish pizza maker awarded for immigration success". Anadolu Agency. Retrieved July 2, 2022.
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