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.

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.