Super Bar Street: Enter at your own risk
Long-time contributor lomsaku added the following comment to this post about Super Bar Street. I think it deserves its own post and is particularly relevant for those thinking of heading to that area (the highlights are mine):
I met my friend at Biteapita for dinner tonight, it’s still open as of today. There were a handful of customers enjoying one last meal at the falafel house. The owners said he still isn’t sure if his building will be demolished.
Before the meal, I snuck my bike past the yellow police tape, to take a gander at the old street. The place was swarming with dudes decked out in camo, carrying big sticks, and generally looking menacing. Every bar, restaurant, and shop from New Get Lucky to the back end of the street was closed and gutted. Many of the windows have been smashed and glass and other junk filled the street. I was worried I was going to pop a tire. Everyone inside “the zone” looked like they were either a hired thug or part of the demolition team. No sign of any of the proprietors.
The most worrying thing I noticed was that Tim’s was closed. The sign in the window stated they were temporarily out of service. I got off my bike and climbed onto the patio to see if Tim or any of his staff was inside. When I got close enough to see through the glass door, I could tell that a lot of Tim’s paraphernalia was still hanging on the walls – and there on the inside looking out at me were a pair of bruisers wearing camouflage staring back at m
That gave me a jolt, so I hopped back on my bike and peddled the heck out of there.
On my way out, I caught a group of brave souls attempting to shoot some kind of video documentary.
I wouldn’t recommend hanging around the street, not safe.
People continually ask why, given how much I write about bars in Beijing, I don’t open my own place. Gee, I don’t know, dozens of people invest in businesses, get a handful of weeks notice that they need to leave, receive, according to several of them, no compensation, and soon have thugs all over the place. On top of that, word is that one bar owner was so badly beaten she was hospitalized.
Not exactly an ideal investment environment. But at least the Western media is picking up this story. Oh wait, it isn’t. I guess no one can spare a few hours from writing about Twitter being blocked in China or pondering what will happen this Thursday.
See also:
- Live blogging: The Super Bar Street countdown…
- Photos: Super Bar Street countdown…
- Super Bar Street countdown: A night at Tim’s Texas Roadhouse
- End of an error: Super Bar Street to meet the wrecking ball?
19 Comments so far
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Super Bar Street was an eyesore and a traffic black hole, and I, for one, am glad it is dead.
One of these days a really good bar precinct will open, with actual footpaths, and excellent parking (not that I care about parking, but I do care about not getting run over on the way to my favorite watering hole), and I will take my RMB there.
Hopefully (this would be a bonus!) it won’t stink of stagnant water and poor drainage like Super Bar Street did.
How can you write raptourously about what was a cesspit?
Could any business that operated there produce a set of the required legal documents that every other F & B business in the city is required to have – did they have Fire , Sanitation and Environmental approvals?
So what about their loss !!! Others who run legal business have to pay a market rate rental, so I have no sympathy for them having enjoyed bargain basement deals, and skimped on every code.
Beijing has to move ahead and clean up its act to meet the future _ if you enjoy these backstreet chopshops I’m sure you’ll be able to cycle outside 5th ring road to enjoy them elsewhere.
@ Shannon,
I am no Super Bar Street fan but find it disconcerting to see bar and restaurant owners getting shortchanged (short notice, no apparent compensation, etc) as well as thugs walking the street in an intimidating manner. This is all happening within a hop, skip, and a jump of the US Embassy: Wonder if the employees there are taking notes from behind their fortified walls to let other potential US investors in China (at least one bar owner is American) know what can happen here at “street level”, so to speak.
Cheers, Jim
@ Jack,
Where do you see anyone writing “raptourously” about Super Bar Street? I can’t seem to find that part.
The point is one can say it is a cesspit *and* think it is wrong to not give owners, who have invested in their places, proper notice and compensation – and a thug-free environment.
Re: “Could any business that operated there produce a set of the required legal documents that every other F & B business in the city is required to have – did they have Fire , Sanitation and Environmental approvals?”
Unless people are lying to me about the process they went through to set up businesses there, yes.
Cheers, Boyce
Before you pat yourself on the back, let’s look at the facts. Oh, wait, there aren’t any. “word is that one bar owner was so badly beaten she was hospitalized.” Why isn’t the western press picking up on this? Probably because they must pass the fact checker before they can make sweeping statements without specific references.
No one is patting anyone on the back and your example is selective.
The people running the bars, restaurants and shops on Super Bar Street were asked to move with very little notice, the ones I talked to were offered nothing in the way of compensation, “guards”, in camouflage, are trooping around with sticks, and it is all happening beside the US Embassy in central Beijing.
If you don’t think this a story worth checking out by the Western media, then we are going to have to agree to disagree.
Cheers, Boyce
I can’t agree as to “short notice”. Owners who “invested” in Super Bar Street were either idiots, or on the other hand, people who knew exactly what a short-term, closed-down-at-any-moment no-protection don’t-pay-in-advance cheapest-of-the-cheap deal that it was.
There _is_ legal protection for businesses in China, if you are prepared to navigate the red tape. Yes, even for bars and restaurants. People who choose to do business _without_ that protection (and we can argue another time about how effective, at the end of the day, that protection is, there’s certainly a range of evidence either way) are simply taking a bet that they’ll be able to operate long enough to recoup their investment before they are (inevitably) closed.
There have been rumors about Super Bar Street being closed since the day it opened. The fact that it continued to operate through the Olympics amazed me. A fire in any single bar would have wiped the street out in half an hour with who knows how many casualties.
And I wouldn’t be _at all_ surprised if it turned out that at the very long end of the chain of events that caused Super Bar Street to die this week in this fashion was, in fact, the US Embassy requesting that their new neighborhood be “cleaned up”.
How embarrassing for them that a stone’s throw from their front gate was a veritable supermarket of exactly the kind of pirated goods they are always banging on about… mixed in amongst the houses of ill-repute and the shoddy boozers. Classy.
Wow, Shannon, did your cricket team lose again?
The hyperbole, not to mention mind-reading skills, are at an all-time high.
Like I said, I am not a fan of Super Bar Street, and I am not sad to see it go, but it did have some decent places, such as Tim’s, Biteapitta, Abella, and so on, and not solely “houses of ill-repute and the shoddy boozers.” And giving short notices, no compensation, and creating a menacing environment via thugs is not, how you say, cricket.
Cheers, Boyce
Boyce ,
It’s amusing how its only the cheap charlie foreigners who bemoan the passing of these strips.
Can anyone honestly say they completed due diligence before entering into a “rental deal” there?
I’d guess not. You gamble, you can lose.
As for the rumours of thugs, beating’s etc.- they’re defined as “untruths” in a dictionary, aren’t they? Life’s tough at bargain basement level – you lie down with d*&s, you can get fleas
No, we won last night. Thanks for asking.
Tim’s was good for the cheese-filled jalapenos (sp?). Biteapitta should open again where they’ll actually get foot traffic on a weekday.
You seem to think that under-the-radar businesses should receive polite notice from the Beijing Better Business Bureau. Why?
As for menace, I politely suggest you watch an episode of “Cops” where someone who doesn’t want to go gets evicted by the landlords. That’s how the game is played the world over. And no, it’s not cricket, but sadly not even cricket is cricket these days! :-)
@ Jack,
Have you read the posts and the comments about Super Bar Street? I don’t see anyone “bemoaning the passing” of it. Please have the common courtesy to read the material before commenting on it.
Cheers, Boyce
@ Shannon,
Are all of the businesses on Super Bar Street “under the radar”? Are none of them legitimate?
I think I will watch cops and see if there are any episodes with a dozen thugs – not police officers – in camouflage trooping about more than a week ahead of the lease being up.
Cheers, Jim
@Boyce:
I accept that businesses who feel they had a legitimate lease through their landlord may feel (and, in fact, be) hard done by.
The question then becomes: who are these landlord jokers who are hiring the bully boys?
Sorry if I sounded flippant above. No-one should get beat up, even if it is a hostile eviction.
The report of the bar owner being assaulted is accurate. I know her albeit in a slightly abstract way. She’s the girlfriend of a former colleague of mine so more of an acquaintance rather than a friend. But she was attacked.
Well, well, well.
It was a rumour 3 years ago, and, this year, it happened. It was up for demolition. Instead of putting poles on the street, bushes would have done. for more outside seating. Banning the cars of the strip, helpful measurement. But would have cost owners/renters of the venues more. It has been its own story from the beginning. Bye-Bye.
PEOPLE!!
Don’t miss the point here, Super Bar Street SUCKED, no doubt about it. The point is a bar owner being beaten! Yes, it happened, or the money spent on flowers sent to the hospital were a waste.
Bao Wan with Big Ass Sticks!
Am I the only sane person here?
I was there the day of the passing of the street into history, and I saw the camouflaged lads trooping the street. I didn’t see the girl who was attacked, but i did sit in on a conversation when one of the bar owners there described how the rough-house tactics were used on her as an example for the rest of them.
I don’t always agree with Boyce, but I can find no reason to be picking on him for reporting what he and I both saw and heard. Nowehere does he bemoan the passing of the street. The thugs were there.
Why on earth would the foreign media bother picking up on one little story like this mugging, especially when all eyes were firmly fixed on Tiananmen Square. Remember how little the foreign press made of the murder that occurred not far from Super Bar Street back in 2006.
Does this mean the second-hand electronics market (Grand World) is gone, too?
Yeah, I would love to know what happened to that market, was planning to buy a new “scratch & dent” refrigerator from that place…