Beijing Boyce

It is a sad day to see your favorite pub resigned to the empty bottle heap of history. I’m talking about a place where you hang out with homies, take friends visiting China, and hold birthday, going away and Thank Buddha It’s Friday parties; where you show up alone and usually meet somebody you know and, if not, chat up the soul on the next stool.

It’s bad enough when such a place is razed for a new, and about to look old in two years, apartment complex or shopping mall. It’s worse when things go awry due to clashing egos. The latter has happened at First Cafe with the departure of George and Echo, the place’s only two bartenders and arguably the city’s best.

(Even my New York City-living, martini-loving friend Ro loves the drinks as does my friend Janalyn, even if she heads for unconsciousness after the first sip – Janalyn, jet lag doesn’t last three months!).

Let’s forget the dirty details about whether George and Echo were fired and forget that the bar has been neither demolished nor seen its door shuttered, the simple fact is that the place will never be the same for its most loyal patrons and some of the friends I have made there, including Oliver, Sherry, Joan, Kay or Janet. (This is even worse than when Buca Buca, which had the best martinis in Taipei, shut up shop.)

I’ve given out 120 First Cafe business cards and taken 50 friends, colleagues, clients and acquaintances there over the past year. This place was a cozy spot with great ambience, a good clientele and, most importantly, bartenders that knew their craft. At the same time, I and other patrons have told management many times to do something or lose their bartenders. “No one listens to people with curly hair,” as the old Chinese saying goes, and now we must wait, with great thirst, for George and Echo to pop up in a new locale. I met up with them shortly after the Fateful Day at First Cafe: it created a good excuse for us to sample three 12-year-old whiskies I brought back from vacation – and they have some new tricks up their sleeves to concoct even better martinis.

The big question now: Will First Cafe continue along the familiar path of many other small bar and restaurants? A cozy place opens and offers something unique in the way of drinks, food, ambience or service. It builds a cult following and those supporters bring their friends. It starts booming and everyone takes credit: the managers assume it’s administrative genius; the bartenders or chefs cite their creations; the customers mention their gratis marketing. A key manager, bartender or chef leaves and quality slips. The place continues to boom for a few months on the momentum of pre-fallout days. Then, there is a drift to mediocrity and, often, closure. Time will tell, but just as an excellent martini has a last slip, so too do good bars eventually come to an end.

[Ironies of ironies – when I arrived in The Bookworm tonight to send out this newsletter, who did I end up finding across from me but – Echo and George. Being the little eavesdropper I am, I heard them talking to an investor about the new bar they are opening in a few days – right in front of First Cafe. More on this later, but suffice to say I heard the phrase, "What's the cheapest gin we can use?" Let's give the benefit of the doubt to them for now.]

(From Beijing Boyce I, first emailed on October 6, 2005)