Brand New Gulou Bar The Factory Now in Soft Opening

Katie Coy | May 29, 2023 3:54 pm | Add a comment | 386 reads

A few weeks ago, we mentioned that there was an exciting, brand-new bar in town called The Factory – or 鼓楼工厂 (Gǔlóu gōngchǎng) “Gulou Factory” in Chinese – and promised to bring you the lowdown...

Well, the time has come to get down low for said lowdown.

The Factory is the latest creation of Zak Elmasri and is a project space that contains four different venues within its two floors. Housed inside are Tunnel Café, a craft beer bar, Black Hole, and Steamed Bun Comics.

Now, if Elmasri’s name sounds familiar, it's because he’s a veteran of the F&B industry here in the capital. Having previously been co-owner and manager of hutong haunts Fang Bar, El Nido, and Zhujingban, he has now moved on to this solo project.

Elmasri had been looking for a new venue location for some time when he came across the space that now houses The Factory. Located on Gulou Dongdajie, right by the northern corner of Nanluoguxiang, it was a much bigger space than Elmasri had originally been looking for, but its perfect location in the heart of the Dongcheng hutongs was just too good to pass up. The large size of the venue means that Elmasri has managed to be far more ambitious and combine a variety of different elements within its two floors.

A huge project to undertake, The Factory is still in its soft opening stage, with the first floor still undergoing renovations. That being said, the second floor has now been completed and is now home to Black Hole, a cocktail and DJ lounge that features its own “secret rooftop”. Black Hole has a simple yet classy cocktail menu that was created for the space by Elmasri in collaboration with Xiaoyi, with the duo having collaborated before on the cocktail menu at Fang Bar. Beyond cocktails, the menu has an additional small, curated selection of fine spirits and wines that will be regularly rotated.

Along with great drinks, Black Hole will regularly host DJ nights. Their first event back on May 20 saw Unicat Attack Vol.12 take over the space. However, Elmasri stresses that Black Hole isn’t a live house but more of a chill-out lounge that will put on events such as bring-your-own vinyl nights, the likes of which Elmasri used to put on at El Nido and the first one will be happening Jun 11.

Another exciting venue in The Factory is Steamed Bun Comics, Beijing’s first and only fully-fledged comic bookstore which is located in a small hidden room at the back of the establishment. An avid collector of comics, Elmasri has been buying and importing comics for a number of years and the store houses his vast collection. At the moment, these are mainly comics from abroad, however, Elmasri has plans to potentially also sell comics from local Chinese artists there in the future.

Downstairs on the first floor lies Tunnel Café and an as-of-yet-unnamed craft beer bar. This part of The Factory is not yet finished, Elmasri is still waiting for some draft beer machines to arrive, but once fully operational there will be 16 beers on tap along with a variety of canned and bottled beers.

Along with drinks, there will also be Neapolitan-style pizzas available – think classics like Pepperoni, Prosciutto and Margherita – as well as a limited selection of fried snacks like fries, onion rings etc. from pizza joint Pizza Pizza. For their soft opening, all their pizzas are buy one get one free from now until Jun 4.

Speaking with Elmasri, his excitement for The Factory is palpable and he has many great ideas and plans for the venue. He is especially keen on hosting more daytime, cultural events such as markets like Rumble in the Jumble, antiques markets, and other various artistic endeavors.

They already have some great events lined up with a DJ night this Friday (Jun 3), then Jun 17 will also see Unicat Attack returning to The Factory for what will be the last-ever Unicat Attack event. This will be a huge event that will take place across both floors of the venue and will also include a live vinyl recording mix-tape. In the coming weeks, they will also be welcoming SOMAD BREWERY, a Guilin craft brewery to do a tap takeover of eight of their taps which will include two beers that are brand new. Personally, we can't wait to see what new, fresh events The Factory will bring!