I don’t want this blog to just turn into us talking about our own life and struggles, but I thought another post about the coffee shop was due. If you’ve tried to stop by at The Aizai Cafe in the last couple weeks you would have found it to be closed (I apologize if you did). In the middle of September we were, as I like to say it, “Civilized” by ChaoYang District (Magnificent with me!). Actually it’s not really surprising because we have actually been in our soft opening phase since June and we were operating without our business license. This was actually news to me, since I haven’t been involved in any of the legal aspects of the business. We had passed our health, safety and fire inspections in June and the government had told us that our business license should be approved within two weeks, so we decided to do a “soft” opening and then do our big official opening once the license was approved. Well obviously that process dragged on much longer than we expected. I’m sure that our application would have been expedited if we paid the right people, but as it is it’s been stuck in the bureaucracy for three months.
Beijing has been a part of a competition to see which city in China is the most “civilized” and part of that meant shutting down any illegal businesses. I’ve also heard that part of this endeavor has been a big increase of traffic tickets for taxis. One Chinese friend said that’s why the cabs are less willing to stop at the side of the road, instead preferring to go to a hotel or taxi queue where they can’t be ticketed by cameras for illegally stopping. Better safe than sorry.
Anyway, The Aizai Cafe will be closed for another two weeks and then we will be having our grand re-opening on Saturday Oct 15th. We will have live music and free cookies along with the normal great coffee (not free, but great value). I’m also thinking about running an espresso training workshop in the afternoon on the 15th for anyone that would like get an introduction to the art and science of making a great shot of espresso. We’ll let you get behind the bar and try it out yourself.
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My partner and I just got to Beijing a few days ago but are going to try and make it to your big opening. It’d be great to meet some other expats and get some more insight into what life in Beijing is like.
Danielle,
Welcome to Beijing, we will look for you at the opening.
Just a note Matt. The “civilized” thing is actually spearheaded by the Chaoyang District (government? municipality?) rather than the Beijing government. It’s a push to have Chaoyang District to be recognized as Beijing’s third “civilized district”, following Dongcheng in 2009 and Xicheng in 2005. At least that’s what I read in the October issue of that’s Beijing. But yes, it has resulted in a mass of shops closing down in anticipation of any supposedly covert inspections to crown the next “civilized district”.