Vineyard Cafe: Vine Planting Ceremony

Back in April, after choosing our name and coming up with the concept for Vineyard Cafe, Will & Xuduan went off on an adventure to a vineyard in the countryside where they sourced some real grapevines to grow in our yard. The other day, after many months of growing in pots at their home, the Vines were finally planted out in the recently dug flower beds. Unfortunately, since we didn’t have quite enough soil, this involved going round to the building site around the back of the restaurant where they are currently making a small park to steal some of theirs. In the summer heat this was not comfortable work, but three or four wheel barrow loads later our vines were finally planted in their new homes. Now we just have to remember to water them. ;)

This post first appeared on the Vineyard Cafe blog on 8 August 2006. Vineyard Cafe was the restaurant I opened in a Beijing hutong in 2006 with Will and Xuduan, and while we built it we kept a blog and a weekly photo album of our progress. The blog is long gone, so I have brought it back here. See the whole Vineyard Cafe story.