Q&A With The Orchid's Joel Shuchat Ahead of Feb 15 CNY Party

You don’t have to leave Beijing to have fun during Spring Festival. For proof, just ask Joel Shuchat of the beloved boutique Orchid Hotel and Toast Restaurant. The co-owner and his colleagues at that Baochao hutong establishment, along with their pals at Great Leap Brewing, have made ringing in Chinese New Year an annual tradition since the hotel opened in 2011.

But this year’s shindig (slated for Feb 15 at 9pm) will be special. That’s because The Orchid is one of a handful of venues to withstand the commerce killing renovations that swept over the hutongs in 2017. That means the party will be a chance to celebrate the boutique hotel's recent tenacity along with its seven-year run. Below, the Montreal-born Shuchat – who speaks in a soft tone that belies his blunt and wry humor – tells us about surviving The Great Brickening, his mixed emotions about starting a new mall dining concept, and more.

Your terrace is now enclosed with this eye-catching, transparent material. How did that come about?
I was wondering how I could improve on the umbrella that was there, and replace it with something that offers more coverage. We hired a design firm called Atlas Studios (studio-atlas.com) to work on it, and they wanted to use this ETFE transparent material that would allow people to sit out here comfortably all year round. In the end, it became way more expensive than what I had envisioned, but it’s more impressive. And that means people can sit out here for brunch in the winter, and we can have more space for our Chinese New Year party.

The Orchid Hotel at night

What are some of your fondest memories from prior CNY parties?
Well, we had a fire a few years ago. We had been using more fireworks here than what an entire normal Canadian city would have, all on one rooftop. When we finished, one of the guys at Great Leap pointed and said, “That’s on fire. The roof is on fire!” Thankfully there was no damage, but the fire looked pretty f**ked up for a few minutes.

What are you looking forward to for this year’s party?
For nothing to go wrong. The party starts at 9pm, so we won’t be serving full meals, but the snacks will be of really high quality because we have Toast up and running now. It'll just be snacks of high quality like samosas and dips and things.

Aside from prior parties, what other memories stand out about The Orchid’s run thus far?
Well, before The Orchid ever began, we had our very first CNY party here in 2010. It was just me and my friends Carl Setzer and his wife Liu Fang [owners of Great Leap Brewing], and a few others. We brought two kegs to this rooftop when it was just a construction site, to watch the fireworks. At that time the laws were laxer and there were some pretty epic fireworks. Then we opened maybe three months later. This is the seventh year we’ve done it, but Carl always calls it the eighth.

Orchid co-owner Joel Shuchat

When you guys were up here partying before The Orchid opened, did you yet have a strong vision for what the hotel would become?
No, we had no idea [laughs]. I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur in Beijing, but wasn’t sure how exactly to get started. The Orchid just started out as an extension of my home here in this hutong – it was an Airbnb project that went wild, before there even was Airbnb. The demand for our rooms went up and up, and before long the business was bigger than what I could’ve imagined.

This place just keeps growing in weird ways. Especially lately. We’re soon going to have another dining space across the street for private events. It’s 45sqm and there’ll be a pastry kitchen and we can have pop-up dinners. Before we took it over it was a hair salon. But they got bricked up, and the landlord kicked them out. So even though this past year has been nuts, in this particular instance, we can take advantage of a bad situation. But it can go any way at any point. So we’re doing it very piecemeal.

So do you have reservations about operating a business in the hutongs, after the year we’ve had?
Yeah, for sure. This new dining spot is an easy project, we’ll invest maybe RMB 200,000 and it should pay for itself, and the worst case scenario is we chop it up and turn it into a few more hotel rooms. But I'd never take on a bigger risk than that. Anyone who says, “I’ll open a new venture in the hutongs today,” is basically crazy. What we’re doing with this new project is just extending ourselves out a bit. But the moment anyone notices what you’re doing, you’re in big trouble.

We have to look at it this way, “Can we make this money back in three months?” If the project takes any longer than that, then you’re crazy to touch it, because there’s no way to know if you’ll get shut down.

It seems like the only place to open something safely now is in a mall.
Yeah, and actually we’re doing that. Our architects are involved in a project at Joy City Chaoyang. It’ll be a multifunctional higher level food court, and we’re doing it with a few other business owner friends, some of whom ran restaurants in the hutongs before.

That could be exciting.
Maybe. Or it could be the worst place on earth, at least for anyone who likes to spend time in the hutongs [laughs]. I don’t know if you’ve ever spent time in Joy City, but it’s a beacon of consumer hell. That’s why it’s successful. It has so much sh*t. There must be 10 million people living within eight kilometers of that place.

It could be an untapped opportunity for you, business-wise.
For sure. Though I’m not sure we’ll make money on it because it’s so expensive. It might be annoying to run, too. But it’s interesting to see how it will turn out. If someone had told me, before all these hutong renovations started, that I should move to the east, I’d say there are no safe situations there either, only in malls. Which is sad really. Because every mall, no matter what the configuration, cuts corners off the final product.

The rise of malls is heartbreaking for sure, for people who like Beijing’s old bohemian vibes.
Or anyone who likes to go to a real establishment. I’ll be shocked if we can maintain any of the original character of the food with this new mall project. I almost don’t think it’s possible. We’ll try and do a really whacky concept. Because why not, right? You have to do something with your time here. And there’s no room for proper expansion in the hutongs.

If the best days of the hutongs are behind us, what are some of the biggest milestones that you guys have pulled off here when you look back?
Just surviving, that would be the biggest one. It’s scary. Our biggest competitor, another hotel, was just closed down. Every day we’re shocked that no one has come yet to totally uproot our business.

Obviously, anyone would feel that way post-2017. But were there rumblings before that? Baochao hutong had a serious scare in 2016, after all.
Yeah. It never felt that stable. It took us four years to even get a business license here. We still get visited once a week or so. Whatever you think it’s like, it’s probably ten times worse.

The Orchid's neighbor, Mr Shi's Dumplings, being bricked up in 2016

If it’s that hard, then what do you enjoy about running it?
Well, I get to do everything here. I get to be the chef, the designer, and I get to do nothing sometimes. I get to talk to really cool guests if I want to. It’s definitely rewarding.

Who are some of the coolest guests you’ve had?
We’ve had lots of great people come through. I’m not sure who I can talk about, but we’ve had 50,000 guests stay here since we started. That’s a rough estimate, but even if it’s lower than that, it’s still mental, considering how small it was when we started.

What challenges came with that kind of fast growth?
Just the potential of being shut down is bar far the biggest challenge. Otherwise, the business model is quite simple. If we were in a normal city it’d be such a pleasure. I’d have no worries and could focus entirely on the good things. Luckily a lot of the old bullsh*t have gone away on so many levels. They can’t hassle us for the same reasons anymore. Though they’ll find other reasons I’m sure.

When you talk about hassles, do you mean bribes?
All that’s gone. It’s way cleaner now, since last year’s crackdown, and I love it. But by the same token, you can’t do anything innovative, because no one will sign a paper for you.

Considering all that, do you still want to stay in Beijing?
I’m too lazy to leave and do the same thing elsewhere. The smartest thing for us is to maintain our course and see if we can move what we have into more sustainable models throughout the city. The thing I love about Beijing is I definitely don’t have to hustle the way people do in other cities. Shanghai is so much more functional it’s absurd, really. But that comes at a small cost on lifestyle, I think. I’d be open to maybe doing something there. But all the signs indicate the pace is so much faster, and things are more mature, so it’s way more competitive and expectations are higher. It would really keep you on your toes, to say the least.

There’s a tradeoff then. And for now, the trade-off is good enough to stay here in Beijing?
Definitely.

Ring in the Year of the Dog at The Orchid Hotel at Feb 15 from 9pm onward. For more information, click "Read more".

Photos: Asiatourism, Eva Chan Photography (evaychan.com)

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