Celebrate Tacolicious' 8th anniversary in Shanghai (Apr 17-19): free entry, taco-eating contest, piñata, DJ. Get 20% off vouchers (RMB100 for RMB80).
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From the Champagne-fueled, shark tank excess of M1NT—where 100-bottle Dom Pérignon orders were a Tuesday night problem—to the KTV room revelry of Muse on the Bund—where credit card machines regularly maxed out at half a million RMB—Logan R. Brouse was at the heart of Shanghai's wild, pre-WeChat era.
Owner of high-end, low-brow hip-hop haven Logan's Punch and community-oriented tequilería and taco joint Tacolicious, his journey maps over a decade and a half of this city's relentless F&B evolution.
On the eve of Tacolicious' eighth anniversary, we sat down with the hospitality veteran, tequila-shot slammer, and now brand ambassador for Shanghai's own award-winning Hai Seas Distillery to hear what happens when the party grows up—but never, ever stops.
Logan R. Brouse, Esq.
On arriving in the Wild, Wild East…
I arrived in Shanghai on May 15, 2010. I was brought out by George Chen, from Roosevelt Steakhouse.
I'd been the GM at his San Francisco spot, Shanghai 1930, a really cool jazz club on Stewart Street on the Embarcadero with a great cigar lounge.
Willie Brown was there. Kamala Harris was there a lot with her boyfriend... Willie Brown. Gavin Newsom was there. All the San Fran bigwigs.
At Shanghai 1930 in San Francisco, eyeing Kamala and her Willie
They brought me over as the American consultant for The Strip Prime Steakhouse at the Ascot Hotel. I was supposed to stay one month. But the city was a wild, wild place back then.
So I stayed.
The Strip Prime Steakhouse at the Ascot Hotel, now Highline
On the M1NT years…
After a couple of years, I was approached by M1NT to be the club bar manager. Remember M1NT? Shark tanks, celebrities, bags of cash.
Big, big change of pace. I'd never worked in a place like that.
My first night, I thought I'd be cool in all black—a black suit. I'd never bartended or worked in a suit.
Everyone thought I was security just standing behind the bar. I had to show them my card: "I'm the club manager. I'm not security."
On Champagne Wars...
Some friends from Hong Kong came to support me—bigwigs who were out to party. One table ordered 100 bottles of Dom Pérignon. I'd never worked in a place with more than two bottles of Dom in my life.
The way M1NT brought it out? All the waiters would bring one bottle each. I also didn't know we had that many waiters.
Dom had made a special thing for Shanghai—the shield of Dom Pérignon that lit up. The only glorifier they ever did. You'd see 100 waiters come with all these bottles.
Then the table next to them ordered 101. Both tables had their own bodyguards and bag men for their money.
In response, my friends then dropped a bottle of Louis XIII on the table. Boom.
They were flexing on the other table because of a girl they were fighting over. Security ran up to me: "Hey Logan, what do we do? They're fighting. Who should we kick out?"
I said, "You can't kick out either of these guys! These guys spent so much money!"
So we just sent them to other parts of the club.
At M1NT: "You can't kick out these guys—they spend too much money!"
On the job description...
I went back behind the bar. They said, "You don't need to bartend, dude." I said, "What do you want me to do?" They said, "We want you to talk to people. Buy bottles."
"I could just drink with people? Hang out with models all night? That's what I can do for a living?"
That was my real eye-opener.
On the Goodfellas lifestyle...
M1NT taught me the top echelon of running a nightclub. Every day we wore nice suits.
Every time we went out, we got treated like royalty. If people wanted anything, I could set it up. That opens doors.
We'd go to Bar Rouge and just party.
Suited and booted
On even more insane money…
Michael Sun approached me for Muse on the Bund—their new concept before they opened Nest and all those places.
I thought M1NT made big money. A good Wednesday or Thursday at M1NT was 500-600k RMB. Which is no joke.
But at Muse on the Bund, we learned that the credit card machines stopped reading at 500,000.
One night, Muse 2, Park Muse, and Muse on the Bund each made a million USD.
Wow.
On the Muse on the Bund system...
Muse on the Bund was attached to Capo restaurant. One side had pool tables, chairs to sit and drink—not really dance culture.
The other side was a huge club with a massive dance floor. And there were eight to 10 KTV rooms, all sponsored by Diageo—Johnnie Walker rooms, really high-end, really clean.
And then there was hostess culture. Nothing illegal. You go to a nightclub, you hire 10 girls to sit at your table and drink. Super fun.
The KTV rooms would make 100k, 200k. That's where the real money was.
Logan R. Brouse—he's got a lot of bottle
On super rich customers...
High-end Chinese. The wealth of a nation flowing into the financial capital. The real customers I never saw—factory owners, the really rich people.
At Muse, I was the manager who spoke English, the only foreigner. I fully embraced being the white monkey. I like money.
On rivers of booze...
We had a contract with Diageo—100 bottles of Ketel One every single night of the week. So 700 bottles a week.
If we didn't hit those numbers, we'd get fined or our prices would go up or something. At the end of every night, a bonded guy from Diageo came and took every single empty bottle.
So what do you do? You invite college kids in. All-you-can-drink for 100 RMB. The bar didn't make the real money—50k a night, which was nothing. A single table does that.
The bar was there for show. I had unlimited ENT. Sometimes I'd buy 50 martinis and just drink them with my friends.
"Shots for the boys!" The Muse on the Bund years
On the Kobe Bryant story that went wrong…
We got a call that Kobe Bryant was coming to Muse on the Bund. Security lined up at the elevator waiting for him.
Kobe's never on time. If he says 8 o'clock, it's 10 o'clock. One random foreign guy walks in by himself, so for fun I say, "It's Kobe, guys!"
Security storms him—not to hurt him, but they grab him, circle him, lights up, start pushing him inside. This guy is like, "What's happening?! What's happening?!"
The real Kobe arrived later with 20 dudes, his own security, his handlers. That was Muse on the Bund. Super boozy.
This was still before 2014. Shanghai was a different world.
Kobe at the Sprite Celebrity Game in Shanghai, 2012
On putting his name above the door...
My buddy Adrian [Wall, now of Joe's Pizza]—one of the American investors from The Strip—called me.
He wanted to open a bar that was like Always Sunny in Philadelphia but for rich people. High-end, low-brow.
We opened July 4th, 2014. Logan's Punch.
On finding the vibe…
At first I ran it like a nightclub: really loud electronic music, wearing a suit every day. But you soon learn: the customer dictates what works.
I could plan out seating, but customers sit how they want. One table I thought would be popular isn't. An area I didn't think would be popular becomes the spot.
"High-end, low-brow—a dive bar for rich people."
On the Zhang Court Era...
We found our niche: hip-hop—which not many lounge bars were doing at that time—classic cocktails, but in punch format, which once again nobody had really done. That set us apart.
The Zhang Court compound was magic—Tomatito right next to us, El Ocho on top.
You could spend the whole day there. Lunch at Tap House, see Stuart Dunn. Starling for cocktails. Then us. Then Tomatito. Then get fucked up and go to Ocho.
Unfortunately, in year four of an eight-year contract, the government said, "Yeah, we're taking this back."
Now it's a Louis Vuitton shop. Right across from the big ship.
At Logan's Punch, with his name above the door
On conceiving of Tacolicious…
The idea came from a drunken chat with Brad Turley at The Rooster. I said, "I've always wanted to open a taco place."
Brad had just opened Hai by Goga on Yueyang Lu, so didn't need the old space downstairs, and said, "You can have Goga next week. I'll turn it over to you. Crazy cheap rent."
We signed the contract in May 2018.
On coming full circle...
I had met Brad Turley my first night in China in 2010. My handler said, "I'm going to take you for American food." I said, "I don't want American food."
Despite my protests, they took me to The Camel. I didn't want chicken wings, so I went next door to Goga, and Brad was there drinking a Golden Gate Bridge.
He handed me a shot of Fernet and said, "Welcome to China."
We got Goga from him eight years later. Opened a taco shop. Full circle.
On the Tacolicious ethos...
I didn't want to be authentic. I wanted to be delicious. My goal isn't to be your favorite Mexican restaurant. It's to be your favorite restaurant.
I'm from New Mexico. These aren't the tacos I grew up with. I don't want to be Tex-Mex. I really don't want to be authentic. I just want to be delicious.
"Not authentic, just delicious." That's our whole mantra.
"My goal isn't to be your favorite Mexican restaurant. It's to be your favorite restaurant."
On keeping things fresh...
Every Tuesday we do a brand new taco and drink combo we never repeat. It gives my chefs time to do something creative.
I encourage Chinese fusion tacos. My chefs take pride in making something from their hometown. We always ask, "Can it be a taco? Does it work as a taco?"
Some things don't. Many things do. Taco is a very versatile framework.
If something's seasonal—sugarcane, yang mei, crawfish—we build around it. We play with it. That's the fun part of the Tuesday shift.
The Big Mac taco, one of their wilder experiments. Image by That's
On growing up with the customers…
I'm aging into the restaurant with my customers. When we started Punch, everybody was younger. Now a lot of people I know are married, they have kids.
They still want a good time, but they don't need blasting music. They're not going hot on a Friday. But when they want to go out, they go out.
We're open till midnight most nights. In the summer, it gets pretty raucous. We sponsor football teams, softball teams.
We do charity events—clothing drives for the homeless. We try to give back as much as we can to balance out all the tequila shots we drink.
Tacolicious, in a nutshell: community-oriented, boozy, family-friendly.
"Tacolicious—we can still get raucous."
On the anniversary weekend...
On Friday, there's a piñata full of Jell-O shots at 8pm.
Saturday, we're working with Jarritos, the Mexican cola brand. Ring tosses throughout the day with prizes. Jarritos pong.
Then, at 7.30pm, a taco-eating competition. Bean, corn, and cheese tacos—vegetarian, not vegan. Four tacos, one frozen margarita, one Jarritos soda.
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Whoever eats it the fastest wins. Gift voucher, a case of Jarritos, and some Jarritos socks. Then we have a DJ that night.
Sunday is the Bad and Bougie Breakfast. More games. Beer pong. Toss-the-ball stuff. Free flow no matter what.
I'm hoping I survive till Sunday. If I survive it all, I'm going directly to detox. For a few years.
On Hai Seas Distillery…
The other thing I'm involved in is Hai Seas—the only distillery in Shanghai with gin, vodka, rum, whiskey. As of right now, ours is one of the most internationally awarded Chinese gins in the world.
My friends Brian Wang and Daniel Speed started it. Brian's the founder, Daniel's the distiller, I'm the brand ambassador.
The Hai Seas team, plus guests
We're the spirit of Shanghai. Our motto: pour boldly. We're in a bunch of bars, restaurants, and hotels. We do pub crawls, sponsor events.
And yes, we sponsor the That’s Shanghai Food & Drink Awards every year.
Brian Wang at the multi-award winning Hai Seas Distillery: "Pour boldly"
On 16 years in Shanghai F&B…
Shanghai in 2010 was wild. It's different now. But the core is still the same: listen to people, give them a good time, be flexible, and be delicious.
Tacolicious Turns 8
Fri-Sun Apr 17-19, 12 noon-Late; Free Entry
Tacolicious Room 104-105, 34 Yuyao Lu, by Xikang Lu 余姚路34号1幢104-105室, 近西康路
20% Off!
For a limited time, snag RMB100 Tacolicious vouchers for just RMB80!
Click below to get yours now:
[All images courtesy of Logan R. Brouse / Tacolicious, unless otherwise stated]
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