I love the çubuk (ch-uh-boo-k) man. Who is the çubuk man? He’s one of the first stores Nicole and I discovered when we first arrived. He’s close to home and that’s where we discovered çubuk. We would go there to buy buy çubuk (a delicious bread stick snack). We never caught his name and we refer to him as “the çubuk man” and his store as “the çubuk man’s store.”
Nicole and I love him because he always tells us if we are buying the wrong stuff. He will tell us what is better quality or what tastes better. He always looks out for us when we shop in his store. The other day, for example, Nicole and I were going to buy a Coke to bring back to the house. They always have them on the shelves and then they have like a small refrigerated display case with some in. We always try to get one from there if we are going to drink it right away, which we were planning on. Nicole was pulling one out and he said no no, there are colder ones over here. Same price but colder? Even better!
Recently, Nicole and I have been pretty busy and haven’t had the chance to get down to his store. We were walking to his store, when we passed a new shop that opened up just beside it. Just as I was pointing it out to Nicole, I saw the çubuk man in there! He opened up another store! He’s a chain! Well I don’t know if that applies since he’s just shifting over one store and is using the other as a storage place right now. But this store is super nice.
It has glass walls on the street side so there’s lots of natural light which I love!! And this space is much bigger than the other and he can spread stuff out more. He laughed as he saw us trying to figure out what had happened. He motioned us in. So we did and took it all in. He gave us a piece of candy which we used to grant him, his business and the store much health and success.
Oh Mr. Çubuk Man, here’s to you. The man who always has good snacks, who always gets us the coldest drinks and who always lets us know when we can buy better. Here’s to you. May you have a long, happy and healthy life and may your store bring you much success!