Oh, I have A Story.

I studied abroad for a year in Fukuoka, Japan (beautiful city, off the beaten path for foreigners), and the options where I was were pretty limited in terms of foreign restaurants. However, at some point, us international students discovered this little Turkish shawarma place hidden away somewhere, and it was absolutely delicious, very filling (in a way Japanese food generally isn't), affordable, and unlike any of the other options. The word spread quickly through the I-house, and many of us became regulars (although it seemed mostly ignored by the locals). We were there so often we got to know the owner, who spoke English, he was ethnically Turkish, but had actually come from Germany and decided to move to Japan and open a restaurant. Over several months while we were there, we watched the place get noticably nicer, more decor, the guy started importing Turkish rugs to sell out front, etc.

Unfortunately, as our second semester came to a close, we went there one last time to say goodbye to the owner and his delicious shawarma. He said like, "Damn, you're leaving? I don't know what I'm going to do." I'm pretty sure we were almost single-handedly keeping his business going, and it would take several months for the next exchange students to arrive and no guarantee they'd find the place or fall in love with it like we did. We didn't really have a way of leaving a message for that next group, to say, "Hey, check out this shawarma place," and I never did find out if the business survived us leaving.

Funny enough, this was how I learned what shawarma was, just before the first Avengers movie came out (dating myself here).