In 2023, can Gui Street go back in time?

Gui Street is becoming a memory. This place that allowed countless North Drift to eat their first crayfish once had a rare fireworks in this confined big city. After three renovations and the removal of 718 neon signs, the big shops fled Gui Street like they fled from "Beishang Guang", and squeezed from Dongzhimen to the crayfish shop in Beixinqiao, leaving only one-third. Even if it is still a must-go "Internet Red Street" in the Little Red Book Raiders, people can't say it as confidently as before: "Eat crayfish and come to Gui Street." "Open the latest evaluation of Dianping, fill the screen, only nostalgia and regret. But when you walk down the street and see drunken middle-aged people hooking up; I saw the crowded entrance of Hu Da's main store; See the familiar old man selling flowers and the resident singer. It's hard for you to tell, it's changed. On the night of early autumn, insgirl came to Gui Street, and on this 1442-meter-long street, she saw a lot and felt a lot.

Some say that Beijingers can't live without crayfish, just as the West can't do without Jerusalem. In the list of ten lobster cities in 2020, Beijing is the only northern city on the list. Beijingers can tolerate the lack of delicious Peking duck on takeout, but within 1 km, there must be delicious crayfish. Over the years, the crayfish that were forced to roll inward were played with by merchants. Crayfish pizza, crayfish burritos, crayfish sushi, and even the untouched "dumpling restaurant" has crayfish dumplings...

Still, loving food is one thing. Beijing, a serious and stodgy big city, is also a nationally "recognized" pyrotechnic gas insulator. Continuous barbecue restaurants, within the fifth ring, basically want to see. And Gui Street is the precious night snack sanctuary for barbecue believers in the second ring road.

recall

Gui Street during the day is no different from any street in Beijing, simple, cordial and boring.

At 5 p.m., it had just rained, and it was still very cloudy. The air was full of moist moisture, which hit the faces of pedestrians and covered the entire street with a misty filter. The street was empty, and four or five old ladies were sitting on the maza at the mouth of the alley and chattering; Sanitation workers sweep the fallen leaves in front of them attentively.

Only the neon signs with sparse lights and fireworks can remind you that this is Gui Street.

More than one person is sighing: "Gui Street is not the same as before. "The old chefs who have been wandering around Gui Street for more than ten years can best understand this feeling. The glorious era of Gui Street has made countless small people like Zhang Cheng. In 2010, 28-year-old Zhang Cheng came to Huda and began to learn from his master to fry these strange-looking "strange" creatures from the south.

At that time, the popularity of crayfish ushered in a glorious period of 20 years. More than 130 24-hour restaurants fill the street, with colorful neon signs, crowding from Dongzhimen to Beixinqiao. There are black-pressed queued customers in front of each store, and some people have calculated that the daily flow of people on Gui Street is 100,000, which is basically the same as the peak number of tourists in Beijing's "top" Forbidden City. How prosperous Gui Street is, how tired the cooks are. The peak record of Hu Da Prawn Wang Lao Li is to fry 60,000 shrimp a day, stand still all night, fry twenty or thirty cauldrons, and wait until the end of work, the poor hands have basically "lost consciousness".

In addition to being busy, another impression of the cooks on Gui Street at that time was "chaos". Every spicy night, hundreds of cars are parked crookedly on the street, and guests sit on plastic stools that the boss has erected, and the floor is full of melon seed skins, cigarette butts and piles of crayfish shells. This "free and loose" atmosphere has formed a unique jianghu temperament in Gui Street. Up to sixty, down to sixteen, not a word, even if one second you still raise a glass to each other, the next second you may carry the bottle to dry.

At that time, most of the gossip trails and "stimulating heartbeats" of Gui Street workers also came from the raw humans on the street. Chef Hu Zhang Cheng still remembers the same "life and death moments" that he and his colleagues experienced when they worked the night shift, like Agent 007.

However, after three major renovations in Gui Street, by 2022, these fireworks scenes have become a thing of the past.

variation

When you go out on the street, the biggest feeling is: tidy. The plastic tables and chairs randomly placed on the street are gone, the spicy oil stains are not visible on the ground, and even the melon seeds in the hands of waiting customers have become small snacks with exquisite packaging. At its peak, there were more than 100 stores squeezed from Beixinqiao to Dongzhimen, and only about 40 remained. Huda and Huajiayiyuan long ago supported 70% of the customer flow of Gui Street, and most of the remaining stores rely on regular customers to maintain their balance of income and expenditure.

Many of the first crayfish in Beipiao were eaten in Gui Street, and later, this became a place they must come to every Friday. But now, except for bringing friends who came to Beijing for the first time to dinner, they no longer appear in this place. However, the loneliness of Gui Street still cannot shake its status in the hearts of some people. Wang Yan, who arrived an hour's drive from Mentougou, said Gui Street was the most first-time witness in her life. In 2012, she and her lover had their first date, just in Gui Street. Today, she and her lover are back here with their 6-year-old child to create new memories together.

Just after arriving at seven o'clock, Zhang Cheng set off from the courtyard dormitory, walked out of the alley, bypassed the customers waiting anxiously in front of the Hu gate, and entered the back kitchen on the second floor. Like the rest of Hu Da night shift employees, he will be here until four o'clock in the morning tonight.

Unlike the doorway that is peaceful for the time being, the back kitchen has long become a scorched earth. Even during the epidemic, Huda's back kitchen was busy, and in one night, nearly 40,000 crayfish debuted here.

In the eyes of the chefs, there is only one acre and three points of land in the back kitchen. For Zhang Cheng, no matter how much the street changes, it is not as important as the newly installed air conditioning and no longer muddy floor in the kitchen. Over the years, Hu Da has upgraded the crayfish production process, the recipe is accurate to grams, and the time is accurate to the minute. The cooks are much easier, originally it took five or six years to bring out an apprentice, now they can become a master in three years. The entire kitchen has not changed, and only the crayfish at the bottom of the 10,000-year-old food chain remain. Pick a basket of live shrimp and put it in the pot, and as soon as you hear the sound of shrimp meat and oil colliding, you know that they have reached their intended destiny.

After the epidemic, there were fewer tourists, and migrant workers built groups and family gatherings became frequent visitors here. But no matter what the identity is, as long as you bite into a mouthful of juicey crayfish, the troubles of the day are repeatedly chewed, turning into folds on the face and cowhide after drinking.

After the transformation, the discussion and debate about Hu Da has not stopped. Among them, "taste is no more", "more expensive" and "no longer feel before", occupy the mainstream. But now, you can only see the golden years of this street in Huda. Walk straight to the left from Huda Main Store for 600 meters, which is the real status quo of Gui Street.

alive

At this end of the street, only three or five barbecue shops and crayfish shops are scattered on both sides of the street, and the road is dark, there are no queued customers, and even pedestrians are very rare. People can't help but ask: Is this also Gui Street?

Wu Yewen is the owner of Lao Xu Lobster, and also serves as a waiter in the store. When we went in, he was busy greeting drunk guests, and said to each other with a smile on his face: "Next time I will give you a discount." ”

The counter is a bit cluttered, with toys from the waiter's daughter piled on it, and a sign in the middle that reads "2021 Chinese Food Health Personality".

The son and waiter's daughter were playing together in the open space in front of the door, and after a while they came over and asked, "Dad, when are we going home?" ”。

In the 90s, Wu Yewen's father-in-law, Jiangsu fishery merchant Lao Xu, brought crayfish to this street. Later, crayfish became the "top stream" of this street, and Lao Xu, who had to supply tens of thousands of kilograms of crayfish every day, basically monopolized 80% of the shrimp sources on this street. Sometimes, the same store, the shrimp ordered in the morning is not enough, and the two grandfathers have to send it again in the afternoon. In 2018, the first crayfish shop of the old Xu family opened in Gui Street, the name was "Gui Street Lao Xu", and the honest and mature Lao Wu and his wife naturally took over the task of operation. Since the opening of the store, although the growth rate is relatively average, there have been occasions when it is necessary to call in advance to make reservations.

Business is booming, and Wu Yewen also began to calculate that he wanted to let Lao Xu of Gui Street go out of Gui Street and make the brand bigger. He thought about taking the Gui Street store as the core, opening one outside the third ring road, within the fourth ring road, one in the east, west, south and north, "customers within the fifth ring road are basically locked", and then spread to the suburbs, and he even inspected the store in Huairou District. However, the era of barbaric growth soon passed, and the wheels helplessly continued to move forward. After three years of the epidemic, Lao Xu's business in Gui Street has been deteriorating. In March last year, Wu Yewen borrowed 700,000 yuan to repay his previous loan and fund employees. However, the loan rolled thicker and thicker, and the business did not wait for miracles. By June, Mr. Wu had laid off two-thirds of the store's employees.

"They are all old employees who have followed for five or six years, and I can't bear it, but I can't help it." Now there are only 6 people left in the front and back kitchens, and every night, the couple also work as waiters in the store. Despite the difficult situation, Wu Yewen is still full of hope. He told us that when the epidemic passed, he would decorate the store well, "pretend to be in the style that young people like", and then open the store out of Gui Street. The most important thing is to hire all the former clerks back.

Feelings

After losing the pyrotechnics, the key word of Gui Street became "feelings". At twelve o'clock in the evening, the neon signs were still honestly performing their duties, and pedestrians strolled around the streets in pairs. In the empty streets, the voice of the resident singer is particularly loud. At night, Gui Street is generally orderly. But there is always a hint of confusion.

Fashionable men and women in exquisite costumes are on the streets of Sanlitun, and middle-class men and women with cool equipment are on both sides of the Liangma River. And Beijingers have been restraining their souls all day, wandering freely in Gui Street in the middle of the night. You can see advanced performance art such as "wine bottles neatly arranged on the garbage bin".

When you turn your head, the frustrated young man who is drunk and holding a big tree and spitting until it is dark looks across the road from you.

The substitute driving brothers lifted the maza, sat in front of the main store of Hu Da to play cards, got closer, and could vaguely hear some words that needed to be "coded". Ignoring the eye-catching "chauffeur" vests on their bodies reminds people of the past rivers and lakes of Gui Street.

The old woman selling flowers, on crutches in one hand and holding flowers and balloons that she had not sold in a day, walked aimlessly through the street. Maybe it was too late, and when she saw someone coming out of the restaurant, she stopped actively coming forward to sell.

This small street that has lost the smell of cumin smoke, like the once glorious food street in your hometown, there are still people looking for a taste here, but many more people find memories here.

But the people who do business in Gui Street are not willing to be crushed by the wheel of the times. In December last year, the news of the nationwide liberalization quickly spread throughout the streets. It was passed on to the shopkeepers who were helpless, and also to the ears of substitute driving brothers, flower sellers, and resident singers. The winter is not over yet, and the people who make a living on Gui Street are already gearing up for the next summer. Zhang Cheng is ready to develop several new dishes to give Hu Da an extra chance of winning in next year's "inner roll"; Mr. Wu finally had a smile on his face, and if business improved next year, he would be able to rehire employees back. This time, whether it will repeat the disappointment of the past three years, or the beginning of the next golden can, no one knows. The only thing that is certain is that this month, everyone will be able to live well.