Mall Busters: Istanbul Beyond the Food Court
June 20, 2013, by Istanbul Eats, Comments 1
Editor’s note: This feature is the first piece in a series covering locally owned neighborhood eateries that offer an alternative to the food courts and chain restaurants in Istanbul’s most popular shopping malls. We’ll be digging into the streets around Cevahir and Akmerkez malls next. Please send us your tips, anti-mallrats!
With the brutally forceful clearing of Gezi Park of its temporary inhabitants by Turkish police, the recent protests in Istanbul have lost the imposing physical presence that, incredibly, lasted for two weeks. These days, protestors are tossing ideas onto social media walls to see what might stick. To keep the resistance alive, we’ve been urged, via Facebook, to take part in all sorts of acts, passive and active, madcap and practical. But the one that really struck a chord with us is a campaign not to spend any money in shopping malls, not to even enter shopping malls, and to spend only what we must at small, local shops. Boycott the mall? Now, that’s a battle we’ve been waging since the late 1980s.
More:Mall Busters: Beyond the Food Court in Beyoğlu, Istanbul | Culinary Backstreets