East Village’s Red Beard Cafe Expands into a Modern Turkish Bakery

At first glance, Red Beard looks like another East Village coffee shop. Students stop in for iced matcha, office workers grab cold brew to go, and remixed pop songs from the early 2000s drift through the cafe as conversations overlap. That is, until you look behind the counter.

The compact bakery houses dough benches, proofers, mixers, ovens, and a croissant sheeter turning out flaky borek (a phyllo pastry filled with cheese, meat, or vegetables), sesame-crusted simit (a Turkish bread ring that echoes New York’s beloved bagel), and pastries that marry Turkish flavors with the city’s traditions.

New York’s bakery boom has made space for pastries that look farther afield for inspiration, from Japanese milk bread to Filipino ensaymada to French viennoiserie. But Red Beard owner and namesake Cihan “Red Beard” Cakmak is betting that Turkish baking deserves its own spotlight. Alongside Turkish classics, Cakmak and baker Burhan Demirci are introducing playful crossovers—a pastrami-filled borek, a bagel-inspired simit, and a baklava donut—that bridge Turkish traditions and New York’s culinary identity.

“I didn’t see any Turkish bakeries in Manhattan,” says Cakmak, a first-generation immigrant. “So I said, ‘Okay, let’s do a modern Turkish bakery.’ I wanted to do something different.”

Izmir to East Village

Cakmak grew up in Izmir, Turkey, surrounded by his family’s olive orchard and raised on a diet of Mediterranean ingredients like sun-dried tomatoes, dill, and fig jam prepared by a family that expressed love through food. His mother baked nightly—borek, cookies, fresh bread—calling family and neighbors to the table. “Turkish people love everything coming from dough. She always cooked for everyone,” he says with a laugh, remembering her familiar refrain: “Eat guys, eat guys.”

That spirit of hospitality came with him when he immigrated to New York in 2018 in search of greater opportunity and freedom. Cakmak’s first job was as a street fruit vendor, working overnight shifts that got him home at 4 a.m.

Looking for a different future, he saved money to open his own cafe after encouragement from a friend, Oya, owner of the nearby East Village cafe The Lazy Lama. When regulars at the fruit stand kept calling him “Red” because of his beard, the name for the cafe business came naturally. Red Beard opened in late June 2024 as a neighborhood coffee shop serving pastries from nearby bakeries like C&B.

But after the first year, Cakmak realized another coffee shop wasn’t enough. “The biggest challenge has been competition,” he says. “Every corner has a coffee shop.” Instead of competing over coffee alone, he decided to lean into something he felt New York had little of: the Turkish food he grew up with.

“Food tells a story,” Cakmak says. “The flavors I grew up with remind me of family, community, and home. Being able to share those experiences with others is something I truly enjoy.”

Fusion Pastries at Red Beard

That vision took shape this May when Cakmak invited longtime friend Demirci—a third-generation baker from Ankara—to join Red Beard and build an in-house baking program from the ground up. Demirci, who was working as a baker in a well-known pizza joint, was ready for a new opportunity.

The duo’s newly developed menu layers familiar Turkish ingredients—pistachios, sesame, tahini, and buttery laminated dough—into pastries that borrow from both Turkish and New York cultures. A handheld pastrami and cheese borek riffs on the city’s signature deli sandwich. The baklava donut combines Turkey’s best-known dessert with an American classic, while the cube-shaped croissant, filled with pistachio cream and topped with chocolate and crushed pistachios, has quickly become one of the bakery’s best sellers.

“These are more than just menu items,” Cakmak says. “They represent the idea that food can connect cultures and people. Every bite carries a little bit of Turkey and a little bit of America, celebrating the best of both traditions.”

For first-time visitors, though, Cakmak points to the classics. “I recommend borek, Turkish coffee and Turkish tea,” he says. Brewed in a traditional cezve with ultra-fine-ground beans over heated sand, the Turkish coffee has been part of Red Beard’s menu since its opening. The strong brew arrives alongside cold water and pieces of Turkish delight, a ritual that balances the coffee’s intensity while inviting customers to slow down.

Taste of Home

At Red Beard, hospitality remains as important as what comes out of the oven, Cakmak says. He routinely passes samples to passersby, asks customers what they think about new pastries, and lingers in conversations with regulars.

By late afternoon, a businessman ducks in, orders a cold brew, and is back out the door. Soon after, another customer walks straight to the counter and asks for a spinach-and-cheese borek without glancing at the menu in the sort of easy familiarity that spells the kind of local place Cakmak hoped to build. “This is my goal and dream,” he says.

Red Beard Coffee & Bakery is located at 194 First Ave. and is open daily from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.