GOURMET GARAGE: 30 years of deliciousness and quality
In 1994 Mr. Mehmet Kapan – our COB ( Chairman of the Board ) – stepped from the family owned cheese production into the food retail sector with the opening of a cute little 30m2 delicatessen shop in Etiler ( Beşiktaş/Istanbul ). Only one year later (1995) we started to produce and sell our own tasty appetisers. Motivated by the great popularity of our homemade treats we started developing our own product range. And opened – due to the strong demand – a second store with the goal of creating a „gourmet market store“, which provides boutique service with our principle of “The best are here” rather than „just“ a delicatessen/deli-store. In 1998 we began to open as well butcher and grocery areas/stores within our „garages“.
Of course, our team were also the most important factor in this change and by investing in people, we aimed to be the best in the sector not only in product quality, but also in personnel and service quality. It was our main philosophy to train expert calibre personnel in the colour, smell, consistency and taste quality of the product it offers, and to develop all the staff to this level, which is knowledgeable not only the technical and presentation features of the products offered, is knowledgable about consumption alternatives and can always answer customer demands and questions.
Our company, which continues to grow without sacrificing customer satisfaction, product quality and service developed in 2009 the concept of a Gourmet Cafe within the GOURMET GARAGE in Kozyatağı / Istanbul. In 2015 we started with our „Gourmet Yacht Services“ for boats and luxury yachts – beginning to supply deliciousness to the haven for the provisioning needs onboard. As of 2020 we began to offer our fine pastry and snacks under the new brand GOURMET BAKERY ( made in GOURMET GARAGE ). Today the GOURMET BAKERY has around 150 delicious products in its portfolio. All products are self-produced. We run our own food-production in Istanbul.
After starting to sell selected products in Turkey via Metro and Carrefour we established end of 2023 branch abroad for the EU market in Germany which will start distribution in 2024.
Today we run 9 Gourmet-Garage boutique deli store markets in Istanbul in Beykoz / Çiftehavuzlar / Etiler / Kemerburgaz / Kozyatagi / Tarabya as well as in Bodrum Yalikavak and Göcek and with CARREFOUR GOURMET & CARREFOUR you find us in 18 locations in Turkey.
We supply coffee shops, hotels and events with fresh foods, snacks, frozen pastry products and produce white label / private label snacks & cookies in small and larger batches. We are “artisan” in our approach. A lot of our products are handmade with culinary care. Baked from scratch with love in Istanbul with the best ingredients we can get our hands on: traditional recipes, modern takes on classics with our own innovative spin. Pretty tasty. Turkish – that’s part of our mission. Pure cool Istanbul flavours – each bite a short trip to the Bosphorus.