Historical legacies, modern coffee culture and craft beer breweries are boosting local consumption and making Minhang District a vibrant place for shopping, exhibition and retail experiences.
The Reeb 1987 craft beer restaurant
The art of brewing
The former Reeb Beer brewery is now a bustling dining, retail, leisure and sports complex.
Shanghai Yiming Beer Factory and Asia Pacific Brewery Group launched Reeb Beer in 1987 in Meiling Town. The former industrial site is now an urban renewal project.
The rebuilt Reeb Creative Park has craft brewery restaurants, climbing gyms and public leisure spaces on around 300,000 square meters of space.
Since opening in 2021 in the brewery's boiler chamber, the Reeb 1987 craft beer restaurant has offered fresh food, service and sports viewing and performances. The restaurant uses brewing equipment like a water filter and steam separator as decor to match its industrial design.
A nine-day beer festival with discounts drew a large crowd.
KL Climbing Park, part of Reeb Creative Park, drew sports fans. The climbing wall is 34 meters high, with a cylindrical barn, making it the largest indoor climbing gym with varied shapes and functions in each barn.
Its multi-level climbing sections attract elementary school students and beginners in their 30s.
Several popular Cantonese-style restaurants in the old Meilong area have moved inside the property due to rising foot traffic.
The 6th Roastery often hosts coffee culture classes as a way to give back to the local community.
Cultivating caffeine culture
The 6th Roastery is the latest example of how coffee culture has taken root and thrived in the neighborhood.
This 6000-square-meter structure houses not only a cafe, but also a warehouse and coffee manufacturing machines capable of supplying beans and drip bags in small quantities to independent coffee shops.
According to co-founder Qiu Tao, the company has acquired extensive professional experience and industry resources, allowing it to provide integrated solutions to smaller players.
"From product creation, selection to distribution, with the application of supply chain solutions, we can help coffee enthusiasts swiftly enter the business," he said. Its flexible supply chain approach enables a minimum order of 5 kilograms of coffee beans or 500 drip bag coffee units.
It also uses the paired aid relationship between Minhang and Yunnan Province's Baoshan City to promote Baoshan coffee beans across the country via its distribution and collaboration networks.
It has incorporated local folkways and cultural heritage into coffee goods by creating special packages including folklore drawings from Pujiang Town.
As a way to give back to the community, it collaborated with Pujiang to promote coffee culture by creating entry-level classes and sessions for those interested in coffee.
Nighttime tour of museum
The Minhang Museum is hosting a special night session where visitors can enjoy the artifacts of the Chu people and learn about their culture.
It went viral on social media with ideas, advice and recommendations. Stamps, badges and key rings with cultural relic motifs are popular collections.
Special night sessions are held every Saturday, providing an in-depth look at the elegance and simplicity of the Chu culture, in addition to over 100 sets of cultural relics on display.