Low-Key Bar and Café Common Room Takes Over Ron Mexico's Old Yongkang Hutong Digs; Opening Party Jun 16

As the owners of Yongkang Hutong newbie Common Room prepare for their Friday June 16 grand opening, the bar looks poised for considerable success. After all, they're situated a stone's throw from the expat-packed Guanshuyuan compound, taking over the cozy digs that were made famous by the freewheeling and fun guys of Ron Mexico before that award-winning bar relocated to nearby Jiaodaokou in late April.

READ: Hulking Tacos and Pulled Pork Nachos for Lunch and Dinner at New Ron Mexico

Those factors should help Common Room become the new local for many GSY dwellers looking for a nightcap, though the new bar does have big shoes to fill, considering the throngs that flocked to Ron Mexico to party, often raucously, into the wee hours.

To that end, Common Room's staff is taking a far different approach, eschewing the emulation of their predecessor's ever-popular model. It will instead close at midnight, opting instead to open early and throughout the day as a café. Mgassa "Kíddö" Tanda, the co-manager and bartender, is a Tanzanian expat (pictured above right, alongside Common Room's co-owner George Zhao) who cut his teeth serving drinks at Cafe de la Poste and Ron Mexico. He and George became friends on these very digs in its previous reiteration, while knocking back drinks with Ron Mexico owner Adam Gottschalk. Kíddö plans to focus more on whisky and simple cocktails, rather than the more elaborate (and sometimes improvised) concoctions that Ron Mexico's Gottschalk is known for.

Kíddö has stocked the shelves with several esteemed yet accessible scotches like a 10-year-old Talisker, 16-year-old Lagavulin, and a bottle of 12-year-old Cragganmore (all RMB 60 for a glass; while cocktails range between RMB 50-70).

"I look forward to going back to that bar and having someone else serve me a drink, for a change," Gottschalk jokes when asked about Common Room's opening, before adding: "Obviously we feel a deep emotional connection to that location at 17 Yongkang Hutong; we took a shell of a building and built it, by hand, into a place that gave us more than a year of fantastic memories and incredible friendships. I'm excited for George and his team to carry on the legacy and hopefully create something very cool in that spot. All of us get excited whenever another cool bar opens in our city, and this would be extra special given our feelings about that building."

Zhao and Kíddö envision Common Room to be a chill place to pop in for a draft after work or for a few relaxed pre-drinks as part of a hutong pub crawl; a place where regulars can while the hours away sipping whisky and playing cards and board games in the small (and well insulated) second floor, or an ideal spot for GSY's various English teachers to grab a coffee and a muffin on their way to work in the morning. Compared to the alternative, this will hopefully make the area's noise-adverse neighbors happy, while also offering bohemian hutong dwellers a cozy home away from home.

Sounds like your cup of tea? Common room will host their opening party at 5pm on June 16, and be open 11am to midnight after that.

Common Room
Daily, 11am-midnight. 17 Yongkang Hutong, off of Andingmen Neidajie, Dongcheng (phone number TBC)
安定门内大街永康胡同17号

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Photo: Kyle Mullin