A women-only bar founded by friends in Shanghai and Beijing. It offers a cozy, non-sexualized environment for relaxation. Signature cocktails honor influential women, with one drink funding an employee's leukemia treatment. The space challenges norms by prioritizing female comfort without excluding male guests accompanied by women.
By Heather Millet
Alleyway to Women's Drinking Club, Shanghai
The window is blacked out, concealing the happenings within, but the door's porthole offers an easy glimpse inside.
Door of Women's Drinking Club, Shanghai. Photos courtesy of Women's Drinking Club
In Beijing, the same words hang over a chic storefront.
Beijing Store Front of Women's Drinking Club. Photos courtesy of Women's Drinking Club
Here, the windows offer full visibility into a relaxed interior, its warm glow in contrast to the cold outside.
Beijing Interior. Photos courtesy of Women's Drinking Club
In both bars, chairs and walls are a chestnut hue, while the bar tops and décor fittings are rendered in silver and glass—simplistic and welcoming.
A few candles and liquor bottles state their purpose, which is to put customers at ease.
As the evening's first hours drip by, the bar fills with well-dressed, busy drinkers chatting or sinking into chairs with a mug of something special.
Cozy interior in Shanghai, during the busy hours of a Saturday night
Friends meet, strangers strike up connections, and glass after glass makes the rounds. Bills are paid, and more people enter. Latecomers find their way.
But, if you read the sign more clearly, and take a moment to look around, you will notice one thing unique to the clientele of this bar: they are all women.
This is the Women's Drinking Club.
Sign of Women's Drinking Club, Shanghai
There are no flower motifs, no pink decorations, no rainbows, nor motivational plaques. The only applicable stereotype is that this place is clearly for imbibing alcohol and relaxing after a long day of work.
Tina Chen, one of the co-founders of Women's Drinking Club
Watching the room is a woman in smart slacks with what some might call 'RBF' (Resting Bitch Face)—an assessment she dismisses as just her face.
This is Tina Chen, a member of the five-woman group who invested in creating this space to drink, play, and rest from the pressures of social performance.
She lounges on a couch, and orders her favorite cocktail.
"When we started, it was just five friends—some old, some new. We decided to found a bar, even though we all had other jobs," explains Chen.
"I was a pâtissière, and another woman had extensive F&B experience. She took charge of the cocktail menu. They called me when I was traveling, somewhere with bad reception, asking if I wanted to start a women's bar. I said yes within five minutes!"
Chen is now the full-time manager for both bars, splitting her time between the original Shanghai location, opened in 2023, and the Beijing branch, which launched in 2024.
Beijing interior of Women's Drinking Club. Photo courtesy of Women's Drinking Club
The interiors were designed by one of the founders, with the concept of the spaces feeling like a living-room. The Shanghai location is quite small, while the Beijing branch has a larger capacity.
Initially, they had no idea what a statement it would make to open a bar for women—when so many clubs exist for other specific purposes or groups—nor what impact.
"We wanted to be down to earth. We weren't trying to speak out," Chen explains. "But as time has gone on it's become more labeled as feminism anyways.
"Just being yourself as a woman is feminism. Women taking up space is feminism," she sighs.
Menu with signature cocktails named for impactful women
While the founders envisioned a cozy, living-room bar rather than a loud statement, the cocktail menu speaks volumes.
Each of the 14 signature drinks (RMB 98/glass) is named for an impactful woman—figures like Frida Kahlo, Mulan, or RBG (Ruth Bader Ginsburg).
"They don't have to be famous, just meaningful women to us," explains Chen. "So some are very specific."
Pearl: Grapefruit, Orange, Lemon, Passion Fruit, Ponzu, Lemongrass, Clove, Tangerine Peel, Tabasco, Salami Coin
Take Pearl, for instance—a cocktail named for a horror film character who dresses as a child and goes on a murderous spree.
Scarlett: Chamomile, Green Tea, Pecans, Hazlenuts, Berries, Cochhi American, Milk Wash, Tequila
Chen's current favorite is named Scarlett, for the classic character from Gone with the Wind.
Garnish defiantly on-brand
It's a rebellious milk-wash cocktail blending nut butters, teas, and tequila, and is garnished—in keeping with the theme—not with a flower petal, but with a thin slice of purple carrot.
Lin Daiyu: Pear, Japanese Citrus, Ginger, Crab Vinegar, Sweet Osmanthus, Huangjiu, Cointreau, Tequila
The Lin Daiyu cocktail is named for the delicate, iconic heroine of the classic Chinese novel Dream of the Red Chamber.
"Every Chinese person knows this character! Not just women," Chen explains. "But the taste is…so fucking southern!
"When we first launched it in Beijing, I wasn't sure at all, but I agreed we could run it and see the feedback. People like it!"
Though the drink features pear and sweet osmanthus, it gains a strong edge from crab vinegar, huangjiu, and tequila.
The cocktails at Women's Drinking Club are not meant to be pretty or light. They pack flavor and power.
Chen has a sharp dream: to earn a ranking among Asia's 50 Best Bars.
Aunty Jin: Yunnan Tree Tomato a.k.a. Tamarillo, Coriander, Basil, Plum and Bell Pepper Seasoning, Prosecco, Gin
There is one cocktail which tells a story closer to home. One of a woman who works at the bar. It is the tale of a brave ayi. The cocktail is named for Aunty Jin.
Aunty Jin, the brave ayi of Women's Drinking Club who left an abusive home situation. Photo courtesy of Women's Drinking Club
Aunty Jin was a woman trapped—by domestic abuse, a difficult mother-in-law, and the uncertainty of whether she could ever break free.
She waited until her daughter passed the gaokao, then seized her chance to file for divorce and escape the bonds of mental battering.
Seeking a fresh start, she began working at Women's Drinking Club, and not only found her voice and her soul, but familiarity with the drinkers in Shanghai.
She studied mixology in her evenings and worked her way toward bartending with the team.
Aunty Jin behind the bar at Women's Drinking Club. Photo courtesy of Women's Drinking Club
"Aunty Jin used to make 100 tea eggs every Saturday and give them to people at the bar, because we shouldn't be drinking on an empty stomach and don't serve snacks in Shanghai," Chen says.
"She is the heart of this place. She is like a mother, also. Always pushing us to be better."
Then, one day this past August, she didn't come to work. She messaged to say she had fainted on the street and been taken to a hospital by strangers.
"We didn't know where she was. She wouldn't answer us," Chen recalls. "She was so used to doing everything by herself. We had to call the police and hospitals and finally we found her."
They discovered Aunty Jin had been hiding a secret: she had been diagnosed with leukemia.
She had been fighting this battle alone, but when Chen and the other founders learned the truth, there was no doubt they wanted to help.
Poster and QR for donations to Aunty Jin's leukemia treatment
Alongside efforts to directly raise donations (see above), the Aunty Jin cocktail has become a signature on the menu in both Shanghai and Beijing, with all proceeds directly funding her treatment.
The drink itself is delicious, combining Yunnan tree tomato—known as tamarillo—and coriander with prosecco and gin, then finished with a dusting of plum and bell pepper seasoning.
Run of cocktails for Aunty Jin, with proceeds going entirely to her Leukemia treatment. Photo courtesy of Women's Drinking Club
The bar also serves classics and a full selection of spirits by the glass or bottle. It has everything one could ask for, especially as a woman seeking to unmask for an evening.
As you've been reading, you may or may not have noticed that this is the first sentence to mention men. The point of the bar is not to exclude men—though that is often the interpretation—but to create a clean, simple space for women to drink.
"There have always been men's clubs, and no one questions it," Chen observes. "As a woman, I don't even think about trying to go!"
Aunty Jin cocktail on stack of books about women's experiences
Yet, she is constantly bombarded with the very questions some readers might be asking themselves: Is it a lesbian bar? Are men allowed?
Chen is tired of these questions. It is a familiar weight of exhaustion for women everywhere: the sentiment that any space labeled for ourselves requires an explanation, a justification, or becomes immediately sexualized.
To the former question: no it is not a lesbian bar—not in the slightest.
As for the latter, there is no magic wand to decipher gender, purpose, or belonging in this world. So Chen's policy is simple: if a woman can personally vouch for the man she is with, he may enter.
That established, capacity in the bar should never reach beyond an equal or female-strong ratio. If there are more than three men already, she will state a polite 'no' to the fourth.
She is tired. Women everywhere are tired of male-centric concepts. The Women's Drinking Club is a bar. It is a bar for women. It is, and should be, that simple.
Proudly displayed on the Beijing door, the clear name and purpose of the bar: Women's Drinking Club. Photo courtesy of Women's Drinking Club
Yet, men who have been permitted to enter have reported feeling uncomfortable despite the non-gendered space.
On one occasion, a man stood up among his female friends and exclaimed to the entire bar that no one was paying attention to him.
Busy night in Shanghai
Herein lies the irony: no women are protesting loudly about the football-decorated walls of most bars, or the sexualized female imagery that dominates so-called 'shared spaces.'
They rarely question being asked not to 'gender' a space so clearly built for male comfort.
Most women do not even recognize this skewed reality until they are presented with a new one: a cocktail room of one's own.
A Women's Drinking Club.
女子饮酒社
Women's Drinking Club
Shanghai
Open: Daily, 6pm-1.30am
Address: 104 Changshu Lu, Lane 104, Number 4 常熟路104弄4号
Beijing
Open: Daily, 6pm-1:30am
Address: Room A109, Building 1. No. 2 Courtyard, Jiantai West Road 建台西路2号院1号楼A109室
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