Where there is wine, there is always a story. Taking Beijing's Paradise Supermarket and liquor bar as a wedge, we feel that it is time to write about the people and places related to alcohol, whether you are a drinker or not, and we hope you can read some interesting texts.

Starting from a convenience store from scratch with retail beer, it has expanded at an incredible pace in the past few years – just opened a 400-square-meter second store on West Yan'an Road in April, and next month, it will open a third store on the banks of the Suzhou Creek and at the site of Du Yuesheng's former granary.

How Auntie succeeded - her model looks too simple and easy to copy.

We don't want to give you a quick conclusion, so we bothered her a few times, asked half a circle of regular customers, and contributed an entire working week to the hardwood benches in her shop.

The earliest beer aunt was Zhang Yindi, who opened a restaurant.

The aunt recalled the small business in the catering industry back then, and she still had a little pride: "There is no one in Fahua Town who does not know Yuanyuan Restaurant and Kailinda Hotel."

The proprietress of the hotel, to deal with the daily business chores, must be skilled. She drinks a lot of wine and has a sincere and refreshing personality, so she can't help but sit down and have a few drinks with regular customers. It is often a table of old men who joke and invite her to fight, and finally drink herself to the table and get drunk. Fifty degrees of Wuliangye, aunt two bottles per person, no problem.

In the eyes of ordinary people, the hotel business is exhausting, and the aunt's good drinking and entertainment methods are like a fish in water in this industry. If it weren't for various force majeure factors that forced the restaurant to close down and relocate, opening a convenience store was not her first choice.

Because it is at the door of Haifu Apartment, it has become a Haifu convenience store by the name of the community.

Ben will only be one of the thousands of convenience stores in the magic capital. It's hard to say how competitive it is to be open next to a residential area, selling Coca-Cola and bright ice bricks, shampoo and carved brand soap, and without the bright floor-to-ceiling windows of a chain convenience store, or the powerful air conditioning that makes your teeth chatter.

For the vast majority of customers, the aunt in the convenience store period is about nothing more than a "aunt" symbol with no name and surname. She will remember the shopping choices of regular customers, and she will tell you to go well, but no one knows or cares who her aunt's name is, no one will give her a nickname, and no guest will ask her to sit down for a drink together.

Besides, convenience store business is not easy.

There is little room for manoeuvre in profits. If you increase the price, you will lose customers, and if you increase the price, you will lose money. Around 05 years, there was the rapid development of e-commerce, and the rapid expansion of chain convenience stores. Caught between the two, Haifu's business is struggling.

In 11 years, perhaps because my aunt has a keen sense of business, she smelled the changes in the air - next to the Haifu convenience store is Xinhua Road, a street densely packed with more than a dozen bars, a large number of foreign residents in Xujiahui, and there are many young and foreign students at the nearby Jiaotong University - I don't know what kind of brewing and timing, Haifu convenience store began to transform in this year.

She sold most of her groceries, invested money in a few freezers, found a supplier of drinks from the restaurant she used to have, and bought a batch of beer, and the prototype of Auntie Beer was born.

"The first time I went to my aunt's place, it was really like opening the door to a new world. Talking about his first experience of Haifu, he put down the chicken leg that was about to be handed to his mouth, "That feeling is like the feeling of drinking Ipa for the first time, the aroma of hops, wow, it's just explosive, and it directly changes your previous perception of beer." “

He is the owner of a well-known noodle shop in Shanghai, and he is also in the craft beer business. Although there are supplier channels because of business, the price of drinking is cheap, and the variety is rich enough, I rarely go to my aunt's store now. But he admits that his aunt's beer convenience store is a key node in his craft beer journey.

Especially a few years ago, imported beer was only known in a few small circles in the magic capital, like an undercurrent, and the surprise of stepping into the aunt's store at this time was comparable to the mood of winning the gold lottery ticket of Charlie's Chocolate Factory.

"At that time, when you go to your aunt's place, you will see a lot of acquaintances, and if you have any event, you will also make an appointment there. We sat on the second floor of my aunt's old shop, and Rooney's amiable round face showed a little pity, "But now it's really rare to go." ”

He was one of the first drinking friends to visit when his aunt's old shop only had two freezers.

"Why don't you go to the place you like?"

"It feels different. ”

He has an almost innocent obsession with his original aunt. To be precise, he wasn't describing Aunt Beer — it was a Haifu convenience store with only two freezers and a small table that couldn't fit it.

At that time, there were far fewer types of beer than they are now, and there were also people who came to visit them, and there were two tables in a narrow open space at the door, holding a large parasol. It's good to have a seat, but when you're happy, no one cares about the two small tables, everyone squats on the ground, sits on the side of the road, stands next to a tree, and when you are tired, you can change your legs to support it, and when you are tired, you can squat for a while. Plain, concise, and kind.

"Drinking should be a relaxed, stress-free affair, and it really doesn't have to be dressed up in a suit and go to some emotional, post-industrial bar. ”

And the aunt would sit in the corner of Haifu and order a barbecue for ten yuan, with a bottle of monastery beer for more than two hundred yuan. In the case that everyone's knowledge source is limited and she can't brag about it, she uses this most simple and honest learning method to drink every wine in her freezer, and recommends it to guests with experience, which can be regarded as growing with guests.

In April, when the new store on Yan'an West Road had just opened, Rooney still went to see it, and his favorite was a small open space vacated between two rows of buildings, holding a large parasol, and placing a few round tables at random, which was the kind he missed, the sense of freedom that Haifu once had, but-

In addition to having more space, more freezers, more wine, and higher ceilings, Auntie's business model has never changed:

Very, very much wine in a very large freezer.

The problems with this simple business model are also obvious: the batches of beer production date are not fresh enough and the preservation is also problematic - the beer or wine displayed in front of the floor-to-ceiling window is exposed to the sun for a long time, and there is actually a considerable loss of flavor.

And because her reputation is resounding all over Shanghai, suppliers naturally want to come here to rub off on the traffic, just as Auntie's old customer, Mr. Lin Lin of the Magic City Craft Beer Association, said bluntly: "If you make imported beer in Magic City, if you don't make it in Auntie's store, it's the same as not doing it." ”

This popularity will also be reflected in the change in product selection. For example, the row of draft beer taps in the store are all from the same company, but there are so many draft beers that can be entered, why does my aunt only choose their draft beer?