The tragedy of Best Kebab

There’s a police officer standing next to me in the takeaway, but neither of us are here for the döner. The man behind the counter points his finger at me threateningly, a poison look in his eyes. “He a racist!” he shouts. “He been paying children to come here,” he tells the officer, waving his hands furiously. It’s pretty unsettling, sure, but at least while the police are here, he’s unlikely to reach for a blade.

It’s just the latest surreal twist in my relationship with the man sometimes known as “Mr Best Kebab”, who stands behind the counter of Glasgow’s most notorious takeaway. I first approached him a month ago, in the hope of telling his story. Since then, he has confided in me, threatened me, repeatedly told me he doesn’t want to talk to me and asked me to write about him. Now, he’s denouncing me to the police, including making the bizarre claim that I have been paying children to abuse him.

Best Kebab’s infamy has made it both a rite of passage and one of the city’s modern myths. There’s the dismal quality of its döner meat (getting a 1.8 star average on TripAdvisor takes some doing). Then there’s the pugnacious service. And, of course, there are the lewd responses to one-star online reviews, penned by an account belonging to Best Kebab’s owner. Complaints are met with comments like “ur talking out yer donner filled arse”, “it was me railing ur fat ugly maw” and “Listen to me ya wee weapon, im gonna skelp your arse … im gonna rip your jaw BARRED!!”, as well as other unrepeatable lines.

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But in recent months one of the city’s long-standing jokes has turned much more sinister. A viral TikTok trend has sparked criminal damage and violence. Police now patrol outside, the opening hours have become erratic, and its owner has grown highly aggressive. After 30 years as a Dundas Street institution, is Best Kebab’s relationship with Glasgow’s citizens turning toxic?

Since becoming a fixture of the city’s nightlife around three decades ago, seemingly nothing has changed about Best Kebab, save for the prices. Not the signage, not the seating, not the once famous ‘special sarbeni’: a Turkish-style pizza topped with minced meat, more commonly called a lahmacun. It’s a late night spot, catering for well-lubricated city centre revellers heading home for the night — too inebriated to care about paying £7.80 for a döner. Late opening hours and the quick convenience of its location have been key to its survival.

For years, the shop has been a dependable source of content for the internet age, gaining notoriety for its poor culinary offering and service. There’s been a proliferation of clips showing people shouting insults like: “yer kebabs are shite” or “yer kebab looks like fud” to see how the sad-looking man behind the counter will react. Sometimes he threatens to call the police, other times he might throw some food or a can of juice in your direction. Most likely, he will swear furiously and tell you to get out of his shop. But if you’re really lucky, he might chase you down the street with a weapon. 

This is not only a badge of honour, it’s the sort of content sure to do numbers online. Scroll through TikTok today, and you can see someone popping a kickflip inside the takeaway before being chased out with a bat, numerous people entering the shop to shout abuse, someone spraying tomato ketchup over the counter (to the soundtrack of Y.M.C.A. by the Village People), and others throwing projectiles of all kinds into the shop before doing a runner.

Although bamming up Mr Best Kebab goes way back, the more recent ‘trend’ seems to have been kickstarted in earnest by a Glasgow-based TikTok user called @bamupboi. In October 2021, he began to post videos of he and other young men tormenting Mr Best Kebab. 

Users heading to @bamupboi’s TikTok profile are greeted with a ‘pinned’ video from then. We enter Best Kebab behind the camera. The cameraman suddenly shouts: “He’s coming!” excitedly, and then the action moves out of the shop and down Cathedral Street, the footage capturing Mr Best Kebab as he darts out the kitchen clutching a blade. This is just one of a number of videos the account has posted harassing Mr Best Kebab over the subsequent years. 

He’s not the only one. On 16 June this year, a TikTok account called @bestkebab.bandits uploaded their first post. The anonymous creator/s described @bamupboi as “my hero, idol and inspiration”, and promised “new content every Saturday”. 

The @bestkebab.bandits mask their faces and voices in the videos. They’re all male, aged around 16 years-old, give or take a year. Although they remain anonymous, the account appears to be run by someone called David Allen. The user posted a screengrab of a review left by Allen about the takeaway saying, “Proper minging this gaff mate greasy dirty kebabs must be using horse meat.” The video’s caption: “I love ragebaiting bossman.” A Google user called ‘Best Kebab (owner)’ replies: “No as greasy as your maws fud hairs ya wee prick, come say it to ma face ya wee clown!! BARRED!!”. He does indeed proceed to say it to his face, turning up to the shop and repeatedly asking, “Are your kebabs made of horsemeat”, until Mr Best Kebab chases him out the shop and throws a can of diet coke at him. The video has 2.1m views.  

A more recent video from June, ‘Revenge on bossman😈’, shows them egging Mr Best Kebab, who subsequently comes out of the shop with a broom, thrusting it at them and pointing his finger as they pelt him at close range. To add insult to egg-related injury, a member of the group then runs up with a bag of flour, chucking it at him and filling the shop with a white powdery cloud. 

Their videos have combined total views of over 15m. They’ve even caught the attention of far-right accounts on Facebook and Twitter/X, the latter user incorrectly framing the Bandits’ campaign of abuse as a reaction to an older ‘machete’ video (more likely a kebab knife), and praising the kids’ actions as just retribution.

I head to 58 Dundas Street, to ask Mr Best Kebab if he will speak to me about the abuse he’s been receiving. I find him standing outside, scrolling absent mindedly through his phone and listening to music on loudspeaker. He’s short, wearing a black tee shirt and baseball cap. When I say I’m a journalist, he becomes hostile, and says he doesn’t want to talk. But we proceed to chat for a few minutes. “They just want to make three pence from the TikTok. They take pictures of me making food — racist bastards,” he says of his tormentors. “It used to be good, but after [the] pandemic, they use their children — racists,” he adds ruefully. It’s unclear who he is referring to by “they”, and when I ask for more detail on the racist abuse, he refuses to go into specifics. The police have caught many of them, he tells me. 

I tell him I’m sorry, and that it sounds awful. “You can’t do anything, anyway,” he sighs. I ask if he’s the owner, which I had assumed. “I’m just a worker here doing my job.” 

So is he “Mohammed” — the name he gets called in the Bandits’ videos, and one I had assumed referred to the Mohammed Shahid who is listed as the owner of a business called Best Kebab House Ltd? This was the wrong question to ask, and the atmosphere immediately sours. “Just leave,” he shouts, gesticulating furiously. “You’re Mohammed, don’t talk to me, move, you’re Mohammed. Just go okay, just leave,” he barks as I make a swift exit, muttering my apologies. 

I return a week later, handing Mr Best Kebab a letter explaining more about who I am and why I want to talk to him. This time, there are two police officers standing guard across the street. They confirm that there have been reports of intimidation and harassment, hence their presence, but can’t say anything further. Later, I find out two teenage girls have been charged with an alleged assault at the takeaway, after reports of egg throwing. Police Scotland told Glasgow Live they are aware of “a number of recent reports of threatening and abusive behaviour”.

But when I go back to see if he’s had a chance to read my letter, he gets confrontational again, telling me to leave and shouting, “You a racist”. I explain I’m not racist, and want to talk instead about the abuse he says he’s been receiving. Eventually, he concedes that I’m not racist, and urges me to write about the people who have been harassing him. 

I chat to a local business owner in the area, who tells me that when he first arrived in Glasgow in 1997, he went to Best Kebab and soon came down with a bad bout of food poisoning. A month later, his brother made the mistake of paying the takeaway a visit too, and also became sick, he claims. “That was 28 years ago, it’s still just as shit,” he says straight-facedly. “He’s been rude, he’s been nasty, I’ve seen him run down the street chasing people, I think he’s got a sword or a stick under the counter. He’s fucking nuts,” he adds.

He says giving Mr Best Kebab pelters has “turned into a sport for the neds”, and while he might have a “shit product”, that doesn’t justify the abuse. “But I can understand why, and he's been a fool to react to it, that’s one of the worst things you do to online abuse or whatever, is react to it — let alone chase people down the road,” he adds. He says “the fact it’s called best, when it’s actually probably the worst”, definitely doesn’t help matters. 

Just up the street, the shutters of Best Kebab remain closed, an hour after its apparent opening time. A group of young women stop to pose for selfies outside the iconic signage, others grab a quick snap as they head west along Cathedral Street.

I want an expert view on Best Kebab’s ongoing difficulties, so call up Will Millinship of the Glasgow blog ‘Shawarma Police’. Millinship tells me he finds it “remarkable” the takeaway has survived, characterising it as a relic of a different time. When I ask for his view on the food, he’s unequivocal. “It doesn’t have any redeeming features that I can think of. Ultimately it’s not a great place. The kindest thing I could say is that it’s a place that’s of its time, almost from the 1970s,” he says morosely down the phone, but he adds: “However bad a kebab is, he doesn’t deserve [the abuse]. I don’t think kids chucking eggs and flour at an owner is ever a good thing”.

We discuss the special sarbeni the takeaway was once famous for, and the bright red Turkish-style salça that appears atop the sad kebabs. It reaffirms my view that the owner of Best Kebab must have Turkish heritage. That’s confirmed when I eventually manage to track down listings on Companies House for Brusk Kebab, Mezi Kebab and Kebab Town limited, all of which are linked to 58 Dundas Street. They have now been dissolved, but are registered to the same name that was awarded a renewal for late hours catering by Glasgow City Council in 2020. Bingo. 

I finally have the name of Best Kebab’s owner, and he’s not called Mohammed. He has a Turkish name: Mehmet Kizilkaya. Assuming the owner and the man serving the food are one and the same, I can see why he reacted so strongly — being called ‘Mohammed’ would easily be read as a racist shorthand (regardless of Mehmet being a Turkish variation of Mohammed). I feel terrible for having asked.

I do a bit more digging, and find a photographer who once snapped Mr Best Kebab back in 2008. It was a happier time: he’s well dressed, and even has a shy smile on his face. The space looks spotless, the fixtures not yet outdated. It saddens me; the idea of Mr Best Kebab smiling for a photographer is now unthinkable. Cameras have become a means of provoking and recording a reaction.

As I’m trying to work out whether there’s anything to be gained from a return visit, news suddenly starts to circulate that Best Kebab is closing for good. “It’s a sad day in Glasgow, Best Kebab is gone… get yourself down, lay a wee tribute at Best Kebab and show you miss them,” the user @prestige420 told TikTok last week. Ironic mourning immediately began: people laid floral tributes outside, posted RIP videos and vox popped mock-concerned children on Dundas Street. Others took a final opportunity to do a drive-by ‘yer kebabs are shite’, or lob an open bottle inside the doors (“last one best kebab guy before u close forever”). The Best Kebab TikTok content machine went into overdrive. 

I decide to visit the shop a final time, but it transpires that reports of Best Kebab’s demise are greatly exaggerated. I arrive to find it still very much operational. A police car is outside, and an officer is inside finishing up a conversation at the counter. 

I spot an opportunity to finally confirm if Mr Best Kebab is the owner, Mehmet Kizilkaya. When I ask, there’s a brief pause, perhaps even a flicker of recognition on his face. That’s when he explodes, accusing me of paying children to harass him. He becomes increasingly infuriated, to the point the officer intervenes to tell him to calm down. He tries to convince him that I am reporter, not some sort of machiavellian TikTok content orchestrator as he seems to believe. I explain the story I’ve been trying to write for the past month. “Get out, okay, leave — don’t come back again ever,” he barks. I reassure Mr Best Kebab that it’s the last time I’ll darken his door, apologising as I exit the dilapidated shop. He fixes me with a venomous look, mouths “fuck off” repeatedly under his breath, and throws in an Italian chin flick for good measure. 

At the start of working on this story, I felt sorry for Mr Best Kebab. I still do. But it’s hard to deny that his reactions feed a greedy content machine and fuel a trend powered by the virality of his vitriol. The kind of aggressive response that would once have made for little more than an amusing anecdote is now seen and shared thousands or even millions of times, inspiring people to have a go themselves. The relationship between creator and kebab maker is no longer funny, it’s toxic. 

Yet somehow, amid the turmoil, he’s still lifting up the shutters, day after day. You’ll find him in there seven days a week, working well into the night. He’ll be serving his sad kebabs to boozed-up punters and taking on the trolls. But for how much longer?

Thank you for reading The Tragedy of Best Kebab. Robbie is one of the two staff writers who make up The Bell.

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