Where trains once chugged is now a haven for foreigners
"Cheering up"
A locomotive is at the right of the entrance of Laowaijie, or Foreigners Street, at Lane 3338 Hongmei Road of Minhang District.
It is followed by a long wall with a projecting ceiling decorated like train carriages, set between the street and the residential neighborhood.
The site of the street used to be the Xuhong Railway branch line linking a substation in downtown Xujiahui with Hongqiao Airport in the west of the city.
In the 1990s the rail, abandoned for many years, was in a bad condition. After that it was renovated into the Hongmei Road Leisure Street, the precursor of Laowaijie, and opened on April 19, 2002.
"I've been in the commercial trade since the 1990s," said Zhang Wucai, the project manager of Laowaijie. "I joined Laowaijie in November 2002. I was in my 30s then and had spent the prime of my life on the street since.
"It was 20 years of ups and downs, blessings and pitfalls. I have seen the place where people built up their dreams. I have witnessed foreign businessmen rise to be multimillionaires and happily married here.
"And for the foreigners who visit here, they call the place 'Our Gathering'."
Shortly after its opening in 2002, the street was confronted with the SARS epidemic in 2003. Business revenue was stifled, but as the epidemic ended, soon saw a growth spurt.
A place to vent in a foreign land
"There was a bakery run by a European merchant and about four restaurants with overseas owners from Hong Kong and Singapore from the start," Zhang recalled. "The rest were operated mainly by returned overseas students."
The 2006 and 2010 FIFA World Cups in Germany and South Africa, as well as the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games bestowed the street its unique features.
"At that time 70 percent of the restaurant and bar owners were foreigners, 70 percent of the customers were foreigners, and among the foreign customers, 70 percent were regular customers who visited the street with their families," Zhang said.
The Papas Bierstube German restaurant was the biggest gathering place for German expats besides the Paulaner dining outlets in Shanghai.
"The rules of game for operating a restaurant in China might be a cultural shock for some foreigners," Zhang said.
"At that time regulations ruled that the space of a kitchen should be no less than one third of the entire rental space, which is reasonable for a Chinese restaurant, but required a second thought upon a Western food canteen, whose preparation procedures for dishes are comparably easier.
"Through negotiation, the rule was finally changed so that the kitchen space can also include the bar tables at a Western food restaurant here."
Laowaijie has become a place frequented by both Chinese and expats. It celebrates a diversity of cultures in the city.
A foreign chef prepares food.
Official opening
The street was officially renamed Laowaijie in 2010 and in the same year was appointed one of the reception spots for distinguished guests of the 2010 World Expo Shanghai.
"The place was where foreigners in Shanghai searched for contentment, leisure and a sense of belonging," Zhang said. "We held photographic exhibitions from 2006 to 2010 and the natural postures of the foreigners here captured by the cameras were terrific."
Bryce Jenner, a Canadian, opened his Big Bamboo sports bar in Laowaijie on August 8, 2008, which happened to be the first day of the Beijing Olympic Games.
"That day was fabulous, our place was packed and busy, with everybody celebrating," Jenner recalled.
Businesses of Laowaijie between 2010 and 2017 were stable. Then came a blow and the pandemic.
Alongside the prosperity and excitement of the street, its hustling atmosphere caused neighborhood complaints. This escalated, with people, both the store owners and the clients, believing the street would be relocated.
"I've stayed here for a very long time and I've stayed here when the business was absolutely horrible," Jenner said. "We thought the place was not the focus anymore. Lots of people left."
Zhang added: "Then we endured the impact of the pandemic."
Zhang described the period from 2021 to 2023 as the "returning stage" of Laowaijie.
The Delight Food Belgian Brasserie in Laowaijie was the first Belgium restaurant that opened in Shanghai in 2009.
"I was joined by a friend majoring in catering at KU Leuven in Belgium," said Wendy Sun, its manager.
"We tried to sell the niche category of Belgian food here. Back in 2009 there was only a Belgian beer bar in Shanghai and we were the first restaurant.
"In our peak time 70 percent of our customers were foreigners. Some of them met at our restaurant and discovered amazingly that they were colleagues from the same company.
"The signature dish of our restaurant is the Belgium-style mussels. Some of our Belgian customers visited and ordered the dish every month, whereas back at home they might have it merely once or twice every year. It was the nostalgic feeling that urged the appetite."
The brasserie is delicately decorated with murals of Belgium cartoons like "The Adventures of Tintin" and "Four Thieves and One Policeman," an urban landscape of the Belgian city Ghent and a scene of the campus of KU Leuven, as well as a self-portrait of the Belgian artist René Magritte.
A treasured item of the store is a photo album that collects snapshots of its employees and customers in various activities from 2012 to 2018.
"The three years of the pandemic were tough," Sun said. "The chefs, waiters and waitresses told me, 'Wendy, we have to stand through this.' Sometimes we had no customers throughout the day, then the staff ordered a pizza themselves, even without using their bonus of their discount rights, and said with relief, 'We made out the first account of the day'."
Before she started the store, Sun had learned that to survive a financial crisis or a force majeure, one had to prepare some additional cash fund. And relying on that, she and her staff members endured through the pandemic.
"We hope everything will return to normal," said Zhang.
For the foreigners who visit Laowaijie, they call the place "Our Gathering."
In 2019, the management team added a cultural and innovation lifestyle park into Laowaijie and officially started its renovation in 2021.
"The international cultural and innovation lifestyle park will attract both foreigners and the younger generation, with new business sectors like theater, pet caring, photographing, camping and hair salon to enrich experience of visitors," said Zhang.
"We're still waiting for the proper collage of new business sectors to form."
Ben Lee, a former advertiser, opened his Thai food stall Kun Thai in Laowaijie recently. It was his fourth Thai food stall in Shanghai. He closed two of them due to the pandemic, but showed optimism toward the new store.
"It's common if you move your store from one district to another, you'll probably lose your former customers," he said.
"But here at the Laowaijie store, we can still find our old customers."
A Thai food stall trying to introduce the original taste of food and snacks in Thailand, Lee's Kun Thai runs till early in the morning.
With the rise of some commercial facilities around Hongqiao International Airport, business in Laowaijie is inevitably impacted.
But thanks to a series of events – the Latin dancing, beer and coffee festivals – the management team is bringing back more foreign customers..
And the events had also brought young people from downtown there.
On July 22 and August 5, the street will hold two water gun gatherings for children who choose to stay in Shanghai over the summer vacation.
