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Interview: Jeff from ILS

He's been at it for years, drinking balls and beers - By Morgan Short, Mar 27, 09

Jeff Young is the owner of beloved bar/lounge I Love Shanghai, who are celebrating three years of compelling people to new feats of drunkenness this Friday. The big anniversary bash is tonight, but one would imagine that the party would spill out over into Saturday night as well, and possibly into Funky Pilipino Mondays.

In the cut throat Shanghai nightlife industry, three years is quite an achievement, so pop by this weekend to I Love Shanghai and raise a glass.

SmartShanghai caught up with Jeff at I Love Shanghai last night, to talk about dive bars, secret Bund cabals, and three years of loving Shanghai.

***


Jeff: I came here from Seattle. I worked for a cigarette company in the marketing department for eight years. They ended up merged with another company, and they gave me a big severance to leave -- so I took all that money and moved here.

I was planning on staying here for like three months teaching English, and then moving back and finding another job but...


Jeff: Well, even more evil than that was I worked in an emergency room in a hospital for four years, which was way, way worse than the cigarette company.


Jeff: Marketing campaigns, selling marketing contracts. I was dealing with a lot of Arab and Korean people who couldn't speak English, and it was all broken English, which was perfect for coming here because I had developed my broken English. Anyways, I lived out in the countryside for a year and learned Chinese.

Yeah, so I was only staying for three months, but I learned the language and the culture, and ended up staying. I met my business partner around that time and showed him around to the bars, and that's when we decided to open up I Love Shanghai.

We wrote our ideas down on napkins, thinking we should open a bar where we can go and chill, not have dice tables around, and guys with microphones singing KTV.


Jeff: Yeah, we wanted some place different. At that time there was a lot of tension in the bars, where you walked into a place and you sort of froze because you didn't know what you were in for. Like, in Western countries, you walk into a place and you instantly know what¡¯s going on, but it wasn¡¯t like that in Shanghai then.


Jeff: No, we were looking at five different places but we ended up there for a number of different reasons. One was that we had already decided on the name and had all the paraphernalia, and it's a great area for tourists. We also got the lease for a really low price. And also, it was easy to differentiate ourselves from the rest of the bars on the Bund because they were all trying to hit high-end clientele. So we made our name as an "alternative" on the Bund.


Jeff: I only met the manager who got fired after working there for two months. I met him his first month and thought he was cool and then he got fired so maybe he wasn't cool. [Laughs.]


Jeff: [Laughs.] There was a guy who used to work at Glamour Bar who used to come in all the time because he hated the people he worked with, and then a guy from Bar Rouge would come because he couldn't stand the people he worked with. We used to play darts with the guys from the LAN club, the chef or whatever.... they used to come over.

The people who used to come over to hang out with us hated where they were working, which is what the customers were like too. The customers were always people who hated that Bund high roller thing.


Jeff: Well, whenever you walked in people were always talking to each other and you felt welcome. I think that might be something rare here. And when you walked in it was apparent what was going on, no hidden corners, upstairs, downstairs, no table service charges... what you saw was what you got. That's something that hasn't changed at I Love Shanghai in Jing'an.


Jeff: All the Halloweens. It's always been my favourite party, Halloween. But I guess Ladies Nights and Pilipino nights were always the craziest nights. On Mondays and Tuesdays. People were walking out going "what just happened" on those nights because there were so many crazy people going to those, just down to have fun. You know. There was no being half-assed about it.


Jeff: Well, sometimes the best and worst nights are the same, like times when the cops show up. But I guess you know... worst nights... I guess whenever it rained, you could count on people not coming.


Jeff: Yeah, last weekend Slackerton [locally-based DJ] and I went down there and had a beer but that whole side [of the Bund walkway] is boarded up.


Jeff: Well, the lease expired and the landlord wanted to increase the rent. So I went around to a bunch of different places to see what the availability was. Basically it came down to doing it in Jing'an or doing it in the French Concession. But there was a lot more red tape over there, in terms of government shit, and over here it was like being close to 30,000 expats in the Jing'an area, so I couldn't pass that up.


Jeff: Um. I guess the first year, when we nominated for some award as a "dive bar" I was a little offended because I though, wait a minute, we're a lounge bar.

But I guess what makes it a dive bar is the crowd. You know, the crowd mingles with each other and is out to party and have a good time. So once I actually embraced that, it helped me to make the place better. I thought, well if you¡¯re calling it a dive bar, then I'm going to make it a fucking dive bar then. And then it helped me get rid of some of the BS like some of the DJ nights and the lounge nights...

It gave me clarity. You know. Some magazine writer who thinks it's a dive bar. I guess I have to set my personal feelings of being offended aside. [Laughs.]


Jeff: Yeah, when I think of dive bars I think of old alcoholics sitting at the bar staring into nothing with drinks in their hands in some dark room. But I guess Shanghai has a different definition of dive bar.

You know, now it's not dive bar, it's a "budget bar", which is even worse because it sets an expectation that prices are really low and when people come in the get mad because it's not that cheap...


Jeff: Frat bar. That's okay though, because it's like a big house where everyone knows each other... that¡¯s fine. Maybe that¡¯ll keep a lot of the older folks out though which isn¡¯t good.

Ideally, I mean, I like to focus on the people in their early 20s for the simple reason that they drink more - nine, ten, twenty drinks in a night. [Laughs.]


Jeff: Oh yeah, I keep track. I keep track. The funny thing is though that I don¡¯t think it's changed all that much.

Actually, the opening of The Shelter is probably the one thing that has changed things in Shanghai. At least for us. Because as soon as they opened they just owned DJ events. DJ events were something that were doing, and when they opened we were really scared because they were doing it so well, you know, and they really took that aspect away from us.

And more power to them. But then actually it worked out great for us in the end because all the guys who didn't like the music thing actually started coming out more and drinking. It was funny because sales picked up after they opened, which is something I didn't expect. And also the DJ events that we were doing, it was a lot of hassle and not a lot of payoff for me. Getting all that stuff set up -- mixers, turntables -- and then taking it all down the next day, it was a lot of hassle, and I didn¡¯t really make a lot of money on it.

But other than that, in Shanghai, you still have your dive bars, your Hengshan Lu bars, your Bund elite...


Jeff: Yeah it's definitely harder to make connections with people. There's so many people coming in and out. You'll meet one guy one night and you'll never seen them again. A guy will come to I Love Shanghai every night in one week and then he's gone¡­

It makes it harder for the bartenders and the wait staff to make connections with people to keep them coming back. So basically you just try to be nice to everybody and hope you get lucky with a new regular customer.


Jeff: Well, we've got four years on the lease with the option of five. I've been talking to people about expanding. We have an expansion plan in place but it has to be my way. So we¡¯re working on it. I mean, guys like Malone's and Big Bamboo have been around forever and they're just now expanding, so to me it's still in it's infant stages.

[Ed's note: Malone's is opening a Suzhou venue in April.]

I look at those guys as role models because they took their time and did it right. They're expanding in a way that's comfortable. So I look at them as bigger brothers. [Laughs.]


Jeff: Well, if I do wake up and I don¡¯t want to go, I don't go.

At the end of the day I have to say, I own a bar in Shanghai, I can go to work when I want, and I can do what I want.

I don't have the right to complain. I would be an asshole to complain.

****

Congrats to Jeff and the rest of the staff at I Love Shanghai on their three-year anniversary. All pictures with this article jacked from Jeff's Facebook page. Permission not granted.

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