Chris Brauteseth of the restaurant Pinotage and Winelink.com.cn (direct importers of South African wines), with partners Toby Cao and Amber Deetlefs, has experienced some of the ups and downs of doing business in Beijing during the 2008 Olympics.Among the successes: A celebration party for Canadian Olympic team flagbearer and Olympic gold medal winner Adam van Koeverden (1500m kayak race) on Monday, August 11th. The Canadians gave him a call three weeks before when scouting possible sites. After a wonderful meal, the Canadians settled on Pinotage and a group of more than 30 athletes, guests and family came to celebrate Adam's success. At the same event, Adam was bestowed the James Worral Flagbearer Award. James Worral, now 96, was the original flagbearer for Canada at the 1936 Berlin games. In addition to the Canadian celebration, Pinotage has hosted dinners for the New Zealand Embassy, the South African field hockey team and informal meals for the canoeing team. The restaurant highlights South African cuisine and was fully booked on August 8th, the night of the Opening Ceremony for the Olympics, and patrons enjoyed the large-screen broadcast amidst good food and wine.
The downside of the Olympics presents itself in ways both common and absurd to the businesses. New South African wines Winelink.com has imported have been sitting in Tianjin port since June 11th. Nothing can budge customs officials to loosen the stringent measures Beijing has decreed to limit possible terrorist dangers from port cities. Wine isn't the only victim of port security; one major European electrical manufacterer has had electrical parts and components held up as well for most of the summer. Amongst the absurd business disruptions Chris has experienced was the local police complaint that they were not involved in the security check carried out by the Olympic security force. Seems hurt feelings and turf issues are global, indeed.
Photo: Chris Brauteseth at his restaurant Pinotage in the Beijing suburb of Shunyi.
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