The stretch of Sanlitun Road that gave the district its name as Beijing's nightlife centre, this is the original bar street — a run of neon-fronted bars that grew up around the foreign embassies in the 1980s and 90s. It is the brash, hard-selling end of Sanlitun: touts on the pavement, cover bands, cheap cocktails, and a crowd heavy on first-time visitors.
The serious drinking and the more interesting bars long ago migrated to the lanes around Taikoo Li and the Workers' Stadium, and most residents now treat the old strip with some disdain. It remains a piece of the district's history and is briefly worth seeing for the spectacle, but better bars are a short walk away.