Hakki Akdeniz arrived in New York as a 21-year-old with $240 and spent his first nights sleeping in Grand Central Terminal before living in the Bowery Mission’s homeless shelter for more than three months. He worked in the kitchen there, and eventually found work in a pizza shop.
Today, Akdeniz is the owner of Champion Pizza, a New York–based chain with seven restaurants that regularly donates thousands of pizza slices, as well as clothing, blankets, and medicine, to homeless and hungry New Yorkers. Akdeniz, who is Kurdish and was born in Turkey, never forgot his start at the Bowery — he visits regularly to give food and has been known to tuck $20 bills inside pizza boxes. Over the years, he has also given jobs to unhoused people and immigrants, frequently advocating for those communities, and he has partnered with the Bowery Mission, Breaking Ground, City Relief, and other organizations.
“People are suffering,” he said in 2017. “They just want a place to sleep. And when I came here, America opened its doors to me. Life is all about giving back.” Akdeniz fed his Lower Manhattan neighbors in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, and he also stepped up to provide additional food for the Bowery Mission during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, even while his own businesses struggled.
Akdeniz has received commendations from the city and the state, been featured in a Super Bowl ad, and has gone viral for his acrobatic moves “spinning flaming pizza.”
