Back in September 2021, Jacob Komarow, fresh out of a marketing job and six months sober, bought three trays of pre‑made baklava at a grocery in California and challenged a friend to sell them at a Phish concert. He cleared the trays in under an hour, tripling his money, and the experiment sparked a side hustle that he kept feeding with fresh orders from a Turkish bakery.
In spring 2022, a pistachio‑heavy Turkish baklava from a vendor in Paterson, New Jersey, convinced Komarow to switch suppliers, and he began sourcing directly from a bakery in Turkey that delivers the trays by sea. The move allowed him to scale the operation and diversify venues from festivals to beaches, all the while keeping costs low with bulk shipments.
The turning point came in March 2024 when Komarow began handing out free slices outside Madison Square Garden during the Knicks’ championship run, filming fan reactions and posting them online. The footage caught the eye of the New York Times, which ran a feature that overnight grew his Instagram following by 20 % and attracted partnership offers from local restaurants.
According to CNBC, Good Baklava logged just over $20,000 in monthly sales during a recent nine‑month stretch, with December 2025 peaking at $70,000 thanks to holiday market traffic and the Union Square Holiday Market. The business, however, swings sharply—falls below $10,000 when events dry up—and Komarow faces recurring shipping, packaging and Shopify fees, as well as permit costs that sometimes bring police into the conversation.
Beyond the numbers, Komarow's street‑sales approach mirrors stand‑up comedy; he greets customers with jokes, then explains the baklava’s Turkish origins and the "Good Baklava; No Drugs" t‑shirt he wears. A regular customer, 34‑year‑old Ana Rivera, says the friendly banter has turned her into a repeat buyer, and she now spreads the word to her friends at Prospect Park.