• Abbey Road, the vaguely Beatles-themed pub which shut down for just a little while to "refresh," will be opening up again on January 7 AND they're extending their daily happy hour to 8pm. Opening party is this Friday (you get one free drink if you go).
• There's been significantly more dark ales and microbrews popping up in China, which means (glee!) we might finally be getting some beer culture. We'll believe it when we see something better than Reeb in the Kuaidi. [CNNgo]
• To make up for ragging on the USA Pavilion Expo team yesterday, here's a cool little fact about them: One of the Shanghai Expo Inc. trifecta, Nick Winslow, supervised the special effects for Star Trek - The Movie and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. [Urbanatomy]

Kitchen fetishists, we know you're out there: For those of you who enjoy cooking at home, now you can add sexy cookware to your kitchen arsenal. Pantry Magic, which calls itself Asia's favorite place for specialty kitchen supply, is opening their first store in Shanghai in the middle of this month. From their press release: more ›

Thank God it's Friday, and it's two and a half hours left to the Shanghaiist Happy Hour! Come alone, or with friends, colleagues or dates! Come right after work, or come late! more ›

Twenty-six hours until the next Shanghaiist Happy Hour ... and we've got our work cut out for us. We have to sort through more than 12 hours of Beatles covers songs — an amount that is illegal in most countries. Thanks to our readers (and BitTorrent) we have unearthed some gems, though, and you can see the entire list as it stands today after the jump (believe it or not, we still hove some downloads cooking). We have no covers of the Beatles song "Rain", which is good because weather.com is calling for clear skies by tomorrow evening (fingers crossed). more ›

We ask because for our June 15 Happy Hour at Abbey Road we are piecing together a playlist made up of all Beatles songs sung by other people. Personally, we are partial to just about anything by Elliott Smith, but we know there are many, many options out there — the Beatles are the most covered band in music history (or so we read somewhere). more ›

Where: Abbey Road, 45 Yueyang Lu, near Dongping Lu, in the former French Concession. Tel: 6431-6787 more ›

Sometimes we get nostalgic for the spring of aught-four, and afternoons and evenings whiled away outside at the original Cotton's, on Yueyang Lu near Dongping Lu. The bar that occupied the space after Cotton's forced departure was to be avoided at all costs and then came Freelance, which despite helping Shanghaiist throw a damn fine 80s party, never really caught on for whatever reason. And so now we have Abbey Road, which we told you about at the beginning of the month. We've been there a few times now and we are happy to report that the look, the feel of Cotton's is back. A few notes: more ›

Turnover is the name of the game in the Shanghai restaurant and bar biz. So, just a few months after Freelance called it quits, a new bar/restaurant is ready to give it a go at the same location. It's called Abbey Road and, yes, it appears as though they are going with a — wait for it — Beatles theme. From the PR email today: more ›