Unless it’s raining you will always choose the wrong day to go to Mustafa’s Gemüse Kebab. On a good day, there’s a daunting line of at least one hundred hungry tourists patiently waiting to try one of Berlin’s most iconic kebab joints. Is standing in that line worth the wait?
Mustafa’s döner is true to its world-famous title. They opened in 2006 and received a cult following after two marketing students decided to take Mustafa’s as their client. The students started a marketing campaign and a website for the already popular kebab stand. It became so successful that Mustafa jumped to the top of to-do lists and tourist guides for Berlin and cemented their hype and fame to this day.
A few things are needed waiting in this line: comfortable shoes, patience, discipline, maybe a bottle of water, and cash because they don’t accept cards. While waiting you hear every language you could be familiar with, not only because Berlin is hosting the Euro Cup, but this place is a haven for tourists.
It’s a hell of a marketing ploy by those two students, it even had Kanye West waiting in line. In front of me were Egyptians, behind me were Russians, Koreans, and further down possibly Spaniards, but no Kanye. I’ve been here before and I know that some of us will break and retreat to other places down the road.
All of us are waiting for the creative kebab contraption that elevated German street food since 1960. But so far, I’ve been waiting in line for 45 minutes and found entertainment by staring at a plastic bag gusting up in a whirlwind, reminding me of a scene in the movie American Beauty. I then realized two things, I was getting bored, and my patience was wavering. This line of discipline was testing me, and I started to doubt myself and whether this was worth it.
I was thirty meters away from the counter and the smell of the slow spinning chicken hit me like I was in a cartoon. I started to salivate, my mind focused on what I would hold as a reward for my patience, and because I had the time, I counted 18 people in front of me and two others joined a couple up front — the bastards. 20 people could mean another 45 minutes…
I’d been soldiering this line alone until I saw beautiful faces I recognized! My girlfriend and daughter have come to check on me since I told them I’ll be back to get some food. We saw the buttered bread sticking to its wrapper and the cook asking us for our order. The usual three options on the menu have been deducted to two, the chicken and the vegetarian kebab, the last was covered with tin foil hiding the picture.
We ordered two chicken kebabs and a vegetarian box to take away. I stopped to see my timer, and it took 1 hour 59 minutes, and 22 seconds to get our order in hand. Luckily, we live close by so we could eat at home because seats are non-existent near Mustafa’s.
An unorthodox style of setting the table to enjoy a kebab is strange but not as strange as how stale the bread was, maybe it was set aside too long after the panini grill, or how bland the tomatoes tasted. The feta was a creamy and rich combination with the crisp chicken that basked in lemon. It was a good sandwich but not one I would wait a quarter of a workday for.
It might not be about the kebab, but that I didn’t give up and go somewhere else. I was rewarded for my patience and I didn’t break and go to my favorite sandwich spot just around the corner, namely Köfte 61. But if it was worth it, depends on how much time you have, or if you want to test your mettle, like the old Kanye.
Köfte-ly yours,
The Greasy Pen.