Restaurant owner feeding and housing people
The owner of Ali Baba restaurant in NYC has been providing shelter and weekly food donations to people in need, a social post reported with thousands of likes and reposts. (x.com)
Ali Riza Doğan, the owner of Ali Baba Mediterranean & Turkish Cuisine in Midtown Manhattan, has been opening his restaurant’s heated vestibule to people sleeping outside and serving free meals each week. (thetablet.org) Doğan told The Tablet he arrived from Ankara, Turkey, in 1986, got lost in New Jersey three days later, and spent a freezing night sleeping in a heated hallway after failing to find a pay phone. He now runs Ali Baba at 224 East 53rd Street in Manhattan. (thetablet.org) (alibabany.com) On the coldest nights, Doğan tapes a sign to the restaurant window inviting anyone staying outside to come in overnight. The March 12, 2026 report said the dining room and kitchen stay closed, but the vestibule is kept heated and dry for people seeking shelter. (thetablet.org) The same report said Doğan also joins volunteers every Wednesday to serve food from his restaurant and other eateries to homeless New Yorkers. The meals include lamb, chicken, and Mediterranean side dishes. (thetablet.org) The story surfaced again after a social media post about Doğan’s efforts spread widely in April 2026. The underlying reporting, though, traces the shelter practice to this winter and describes a longer pattern of food donations. (thetablet.org) (x.com) Doğan has been doing public meal giveaways for years. In November 2020, CBS New York reported that he was preparing 10 turkeys and other food for homeless people during Thanksgiving, while a 2017 report said Ali Baba worked with the New York Police Department and the Muslim Officers Society on a free Thanksgiving dinner in Manhattan. (cbsnews.com) (dailysabah.com) The backdrop is a city still managing a large shelter population. Coalition for the Homeless said 90,803 people slept each night in New York City’s main shelter system in February 2026, and the city’s Department of Homeless Services publishes a daily shelter census tracking that demand. (coalitionforthehomeless.org) (nyc.gov) Doğan told The Tablet he has not forgotten the night a stranger’s building gave him warmth. Four decades later, he is using a restaurant doorway on East 53rd Street to offer the same thing. (thetablet.org)
