Jacob Komarow is a 30-year-old entrepreneur, high school dropout and former drug addict. He’s also known as the “Baklava Guy” around New York City, and he truly believes he’s found his own American Dream in a Turkish pastry.
The man behind Good Baklava — a roaming baklava business that sells the pastries on the street, out of the back of a van or temporary stands, as well as online — is currently riding a thrilling wave of sweet success, fueled by viral fame and guerrilla-style sales tactics. The five-year-old business has no permanent storefront — at least, not yet. So, on any given day, you can find Komarow peddling his many-layered, syrupy-sweet treats anywhere from city parks to music festivals. Throughout May and June, he also roamed the streets outside Madison Square Garden, helping throngs of exultant New York Knicks fans celebrate their team’s championship run by offering free slices of the baklava he imports from a supplier in Gaziantep, Turkey.
Komarow — that’s his legal name, though he goes by Roy Donk professionally, a reference to the Netflix comedy sketch show “I Think You Should Leave” — points to the Knicks’ success as a turning point for his business. After posting viral social media videos of his MSG appearances, Komarow’s exposure exploded, landing him a profile in The New York Times that “just started a baklava wildfire,” he says.
“All of a sudden, brands were reaching out to us to partner,” he says. Good Baklava has since collaborated with companies such as US Mobile and Acme Smoked Fish, along with several local and national restaurants. “We grew our Instagram audience by 20% overnight [after the Times piece ran]. We finally got the recognition that we’ve been chasing for the past five years just by showing up and celebrating with New York. I don’t think this company could have ever survived anywhere else besides New York City.”
He’s been doing more than just surviving of late. Over a recent nine-month period, Good Baklava averaged just over $20,000 in monthly sales between street sales, occasional pop-up locations, a wholesale business that supplies local cafes and shops and online orders through a Shopify website, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It.
Komarow is as surprised, and pleased, as anyone at how far Good Baklava has come: “It was never supposed to get this far,” he says. “So, this is the American dream.”
It started as a joke, then became a side-hustle
Komarow admits the business began as a joke.
On his way to a Phish concert in California in September 2021, he stopped in a Middle Eastern grocery store and decided on a whim to buy three trays of pre-made baklava to sell to his fellow concert-goers to make some extra cash. He bet a skeptical friend he could sell it all and make a profit, then ended up tripling his money, Komarow says.
The fact that he latched onto that initial crumb of success may have been more desperate than inspired. In 2021, Komarow says he was six months sober and lost his “first real job” as an online marketer for an apparel company. He shifted to freelance marketing work, using his baklava business as a side hustle to help keep him afloat. For nearly three years, Komarow bought trays of baklava to sell at Phish concerts before expanding his scope to include other outdoor events where large groups of potentially hungry people might be gathered, he says. Today, he says he’s more than five years sober, and “grateful” to be living in recovery.
Komarow roams New York City’s public parks and beaches, selling slices of baklava with a sales style he likens to stand-up comedy.Source: CNBC Make It
In the spring of 2022, Komarow bought a piece of pistachio-laden baklava from a Turkish vendor in Paterson, New Jersey that changed his life: “I was, like, mind blown,” he says. After initially buying in bulk directly from that vendor, by 2024 Komarow earned an introduction to the supplier, a commercial bakery in Turkey that now ships him the unbaked baklava trays on a monthly basis, giving Komarow access to what he enthusiastically calls “an unlimited supply of baklava.”
Now, no matter where he’s pitching his wares, Komarow is an evangelist for the Turkish variety of baklava he hawks. It features finely crushed pistachios and a light, lemony syrup that’s not to be confused with the traditional Greek version filled with walnuts and honey.
He insists Good Baklava’s product puts other commercial baklavas “to shame,” touting the 40 layers of flaky dough that intermingle with sweet and nutty flavors. “It creates a spectrum of texture…where your mouth crushes each layer, from crispy to soft. [You] taste the earthiness of the nuts and then the sweet finish.”
A full-time business, seeking consistency
Despite the recent notoriety, the business’ best month to date came in December 2025, when Good Baklava pulled in nearly $70,000 thanks to a combination of holiday season orders and consistent customer traffic at a temporary fixed location in New York’s outdoor Union Square Holiday Market. The following month, the business had under $10,000 in sales, highlighting the hit-or-miss nature of Good Baklava’s business model.
While he doesn’t pay for a permanent location, Komarow has other costs to contend with. In addition to paying his supplier to ship the product, he covers packaging and marketing costs, as well as fees paid to Shopify to host Good Baklava’s e-commerce website. As his business grows, Komarow says he needs more help, estimating that he has 11 total part-time employees who work as needed on marketing and administrative tasks, help pack shipments and staff the counter at pop-up spaces.
Landing a booth in the holiday market also came with added costs to secure the appropriate permits and insurance waivers. Otherwise, whether roaming parks or selling out of his van, Komarow says he takes his chances without official concessions permits from the city. While he laments occasional “police issues,” when law enforcement tells him to leave a park or festival for selling baklava without a permit, Komarow says he’s yet to be arrested or fined.
Komarow hopes all of the attention Good Baklava has received of late, including millions of social media views, can open a path to creating more permanent, and reliable, streams of income. He’s on the lookout for more corporate collaborations, special events and pop-up locations. Komarow has also considered seeking investors to back a brick-and-mortar location — not that he would want to lose the spontaneity behind Good Baklava’s rise to fame.
For now, Good Baklava’s future is far from concrete, but Komarow is optimistic. Since the Knicks playoff run and the publicity from the Times article in June, Good Baklava has consistently brought in at least $20,000 in monthly revenue, he says. That baseline of stability gives Komarow confidence that he could start paying himself about $4,000 per month by the end of 2026, which would mark the first salary he’s taken since starting the business. Komarow previously covered personal living expenses with freelance marketing income, but he says he paused that business in July to spend all of his time on Good Baklava.
He does use Good Baklava’s proceeds to cover rent in the Brooklyn apartment that also serves as the business’ semi-official base of operations. That’s where he and a handful of part-time employees package and store trays of baklava that are baked by a commercial baker in New Jersey after arriving unbaked in monthly installments on a pallet delivered via shipping container from Turkey.
Komarow is open to anything that keeps his business growing: “If it’s one store, fantastic. That’s as far as we’ll go. No f—ing problem,” he says. “If it’s 300 stores, even better. There’s no end goal. It’s just: Take it further.”
An ever-evolving sales pitch
Whether he’s in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park or Rockaway Beach or the parking lot of a Phish concert, Komarow follows the same basic sales strategy: He strolls up to unsuspecting, hopefully hungry, strangers with a fresh tray of his signature product while flashing the baklava tattoo he added to his arm in April 2022, just months after selling his first slice.
Komarow likens his improvisational-style sales pitch to a stand-up comedian performing crowd-work. “Winning the audience is making the sale,” he says. He typically approaches people with a friendly introduction and a simple, innocuous question: “Hello! Can I try to sell you some baklava?” From there, he can alternate between charming small talk, chatting about the weather or explaining his t-shirts that read “Good Baklava; No Drugs,” which he had made to answer the exact question raised by the shirt. When he’s selling baklava at concerts, Komarow says, he tends to get a lot more customers asking whether the treats contain anything illicit.
“I’ve been selling baklava for five years, and that’s five years of careful testing: Trying different tactics, trying different sales pitches, different keywords, different approaches, different intros and applying them in real time,” says Komarow, noting that he believes he can learn something new to help him hone his sales pitch every day he’s on the job.
“It’s really a mixture of listening and adapting, understanding what patterns people ask questions, how to navigate them, how to be witty with it — and really just trying to close deals,” he says.
Once they’re on the hook, Komarow explains the pricing: Typically, three pieces sell for $10, or seven for $20, though he can charge $15 for three pieces at music festivals where concessions are usually fairly expensive. He also explains where the baklava comes from, and how he came across this particular variety of dessert.
Is Komarow simply the consummate salesman — or, has he really become a true believer? As he strives to continue seeing just how far he can go with the business that once began as a joke, he insists he’s never been more serious:
“Baklava is my whole life now,” he says. “It’s the best pastry on the planet.”
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