Stove burning nonstop for 143 years

A 143-year-old Beijing roast duck restaurant may be closing for renovations but it is not about to let its ovens go cold.

To maintain its tradition, the restaurant said it will keep embers from its wood-fired ovens burning during the six-month refurbishing job.

The oldest outlet of Quanjude Group of roast duck restaurants, on Qianmen Street in downtown Beijing, closed for business on Tuesday night.




A ceremony to preserve the oven fire, which the restaurant says has not been extinguished since it first opened in 1864, was conducted before the end of business at 8 PM on Tuesday.

According to the restaurant’s electronic board, the restaurant has served 115,330,259 ducks in over 140 years of service.

"The electric board will stop tracking the ducks, but the stove has been burning for about a century and a half, and the fire will never die out," Jiang Junxian, chairman of the board of Quanjude Group Co. Ltd. said.