To the uninitiated, the restaurant owners of a small corner of Istanbul’s Yenibosna neighborhood might come off as having an unhealthy obsession with particularly garish versions of the colors yellow and green. As we recently explored the lower end of the Yenibosna neighborhood, one of Istanbul’s large periphery boroughs, we stumbled upon a small cluster of kebap shops spread out amid a run-down yet bustling strip of auto repair shops and congested rows of apartments, with each eatery’s sign decked out in identical yellow and green trim.

The Yenibosna bus station sits at the intersection of numerous transit routes, where passengers can embark on journeys to the furthest corners of the city as well as to its beating heart. Close to Istanbul’s main airport, and wedged in beneath several high-rise towers that seem to have ascended from the ground overnight, the bus station sits adjacent to a major metro line and below the main E-5 highway, with the grubby, crowded neighborhood of Yenibosna to the north.