A Turkish Family Found Community in North Atlanta. Now Turkuaz Is Growing.

When Murat and his family moved north from the Atlanta area in 2020, they were looking for something that does not appear on a restaurant menu: a community in which to raise their children.

They found friends, other Turkish families and a sense of belonging around Cumming and Alpharetta. Today, their story runs through Turkuaz Mediterranean Grill & Pizza on Peachtree Parkway, where a restaurant career that began with pizza has made room for the food of home.

Now the family is preparing for another step. In an interview with North Atlanta Star on Saturday, Murat said a second Turkuaz location is being renovated in Milton. The larger restaurant will also serve breakfast, he said. An opening date has not been set.

Turkish food behind a pizza counter

Murat traces the family’s first Atlanta-area restaurant business to 2009, near Emory University. A second location followed near Ponce City Market in 2014.

Those businesses centered on pizza, but the family’s restaurant background reached back to Turkey. Turkish professors visiting the Emory-area restaurant gave them a reason to cook familiar dishes, even when those meals were not part of the regular menu.

Murat said restrictions at the shopping center, which already had another Mediterranean restaurant, limited what they could add to the menu. Pizza remained the main business, while Turkish cooking found its audience more informally.

At Turkuaz, the two now sit side by side. The menu includes conventional pizzas alongside lahmacun, a thin Turkish flatbread topped with minced meat and herbs, and pide with fillings such as cheese, meat or sucuk sausage. There are also grilled kebabs, hummus, baba ganoush and other appetizers.

Asked which dish customers particularly like, Murat pointed to the mixed meat grill. His description of the restaurant’s appeal was equally straightforward: good food and a place for families with children.

A move built around belonging

Murat and his wife, Bahar, have four children. As their family grew, the people around them became an increasingly important part of deciding where to live.

They bought a home in the Cumming area in 2020. Murat said the Turkish community in North Atlanta helped draw them here, giving the family friends nearby and their children connections of their own.

“We have friends around here,” he said.

He spoke about meeting friends in parks and gathering for picnics. The community he values takes shape through those ordinary visits between families, rather than everyone assembling in one place.

The existing restaurant is too small for the larger Turkish holiday gatherings we discussed. When I asked whether he needed more room, Murat revealed that the Milton project was already underway.

Room for the next chapter

The second location will carry the Turkuaz name, with more space and breakfast among the plans. For now, work on the premises will determine when it is ready to welcome diners.

Murat still returns to Turkey, including a visit last year. But when our conversation turned to where his life is now, his answer was clear: here.

For a family whose American restaurant story began with pizza near Emory, that now means children growing up in North Atlanta, friends close by and another kitchen taking shape in Milton.

Turkuaz Mediterranean Grill & Pizza is at 2631 Peachtree Parkway, Suite 530, with a Suwanee mailing address. The restaurant can be reached at 470-249-3149.