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2009 Jun 02 Return of a Quiet Haven

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Don’t you hate it when your favourite café closes for renovations? Especially when the “renovations” involve complete demolition. The tiny, cat filled Arts Haven Cafe on Guozijian Jie was formerly a quiet oasis of quality coffee for residents around the Yonghegong area. Sure, the menu was limited and the hours irregular, but the coffee was supplemented by cheap bottles of Tsingtao (RMB 12) and the avuncular owner never took issue with idle laowai tapping away on their laptops for hours on end.

A sign went up announcing the cafe’s temporary closure a few months ago, and days later the old hutong-style building vanished under wrecker’s hammers. Fears of a hideously soulless modern structure going up in its place fortunately proved unfounded, and the Arts Haven is now back in a grey brick building that looks much like the old one.



It’s been renamed Cafe Confucius, although confusingly the old Arts Haven sign still hangs outside. It’s twice the size of its former self and now has an open frontage providing views of the passing pedestrians and bike traffic. It’s managed to retain its cozy atmosphere though, along with the good coffee and collection of white cats. The menu remains small and somewhat random, with a selection of pretty ordinary cakes, decent samosas (RMB 25 a pair) and generous servings of fries (RMB 15).

Mostly though, the cafe remains a great place to sip coffee and watch the world go by in one of the few streets retaining some semblance of old Beijing.

Café Confucius (formerly the Arts Haven Café), 25 Guozijian Jie (near Yonghegong - the Lama Temple) , Dongcheng District (6405 2047)

Re: Return of a Quiet Haven

Hey, nice to see this report on the re-opening of this guozijian neighbourhood gem. Just for the record, though, the cafe has always been officially known as Cafe Confucius(on their name cards for example), but had the Arts Haven sign as well

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