Last Call: Keven Café, the French Concession’s Diner

Last call at Keven Café, the western restaurant that became the French Concession’s beloved neighborhood diner. The café, which closes today, sat unassumingly on leafy Hengshan Road for 25 years, a comfortingly enduring presence amidst the meteoric transformations of the last quarter-century.

Keven Café, in the former Cavendish Court Apartments

When it opened, in October 1997, Keven Cafe was the only place outside a hotel to get a western breakfast or a cup of coffee. Like any good diner, the food was good, but never fancy, the waitresses were efficient, extremely competent, and a tad brusque; the surroundings were unremarkable. And the most astounding thing? Very little changed over the years.

Like a grandmother’s living room, the interior never changed, never felt the need to subject itself to the ‘refreshment’ that restaurants of a certain age feel they must do to keep up. Keven remained stubbornly the same: the same Tiffany-style lamps, generic landscape paintings, coffee shop tables and chairs, the same layout.