Shanghai Blue Bottle Coffee Temporarily Suspends Operations?!

According to an official statement from Blue Bottle Coffee, to cooperate with epidemic prevention and control measures, Blue Bottle Coffee's Yutong store in Shanghai will temporarily suspend operations. The company has not yet provided a specific timeline for when the store will resume business, and a reopening date will be announced separately.

According to the Shanghai Municipal Health Commission's report: From 0:00 to 24:00 on March 19, Shanghai reported 17 new locally confirmed COVID-19 cases and 492 asymptomatic infections. Among these, 6 confirmed cases were previously classified as asymptomatic infections, while 9 confirmed cases and 232 asymptomatic infections were discovered during quarantine control, with the remaining cases identified through screening of related at-risk populations.

As of the time of writing, from 0:00 to 17:00 on March 20, Shanghai added 22 new locally confirmed COVID-19 cases and 494 asymptomatic infections, plus 5 imported cases from abroad.

Blue Bottle Coffee's China Debut

Blue Bottle Coffee's Yutong store in Shanghai is the brand's first location in mainland China. As the brand has always focused on serving freshly roasted coffee, Blue Bottle Coffee has gained recognition from many coffee enthusiasts in other regions. Within coffee circles, Blue Bottle Coffee is often regarded as a "textbook example" in the specialty coffee field.

As Blue Bottle Coffee's popularity grew and its entry into the mainland market was long delayed, local customers had long been filled with curiosity and anticipation for the brand. Therefore, when Blue Bottle Coffee announced its entry into the mainland market and confirmed the location of its first store, many people prepared to "sprint" to visit on opening day.

Opening Day Frenzy

On the first day that Blue Bottle Coffee's Shanghai Yutong store officially opened to the public, the "spectacular scene" of people lining up to visit was shared in real-time across various social media platforms by netizens. Many customers who arrived "late" that day reported waiting nearly 7 hours to enter the store, then waiting another 45 minutes from ordering to pickup... Even without being there in person, one could feel the crowd through simple descriptions.

While some netizens happily but wearily shared their experiences, others frowned with concern about whether such queuing situations were safe. In many photos shared by netizens, it was clear that some people in line lacked epidemic prevention awareness, with masks not worn properly and distances between people being quite close.

To alleviate overcrowding inside the store, Blue Bottle Coffee organized entry in batches, allowing 8-10 people at a time. However, even those who entered the store didn't leave immediately after getting their orders, so both inside and outside the store, the number of people increased quickly and decreased slowly.

Adapting to Rising Cases

As the initial excitement subsided, the number of people visiting three days after opening significantly decreased, though queuing was still necessary to make purchases. Shanghai's epidemic situation showed an upward trend starting in March. By March 17 (0:00-24:00), the number of confirmed cases reached as high as 57, but this number didn't deter people from queuing to buy Blue Bottle Coffee. Many netizens joked: "During this epidemic period, besides those lining up for nucleic acid testing, this is probably where the most people are queuing!"

Recently, Blue Bottle Coffee also implemented related epidemic prevention measures: orders could only be placed remotely, with pickup outside the store, and no entry inside was allowed. Even so, netizens were still willing to wait in line for over an hour... As Shanghai's daily number of confirmed cases remained high, to better cooperate with epidemic prevention and control work, Blue Bottle Coffee officially announced at 9 PM last night that it would suspend operations, with the reopening date to be announced separately. Therefore, Blue Bottle Coffee's current suspension may last longer than 48 hours.

Worsening Epidemic Situation

Recently, the epidemic situation has become increasingly severe. According to the National Health Commission's report, from 0:00 to 24:00 on March 19, 31 provinces (autonomous regions, municipalities) and Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps reported 1,737 new confirmed cases. Among these, 81 were imported cases from abroad, and 1,656 were local cases.

In the face of the epidemic, health is much more important than drinking coffee! Everyone should cooperate well with epidemic prevention work and avoid gathering in groups.

Image sources: Blue Bottle Coffee official, Internet, Xiaohongshu

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