Few cocktail lounges live up to their name. One that did was Glamour Bar, a Shanghai institution that over the weekend abruptly shut its doors.

Owner Michelle Garnaut cited soaring rental costs as the reason for the decision last week to give up the room famous for its plush service, star-studded literary festival and shimmering views over the city’s riverfront Bund.

As well-wishers gathered to bid goodbye Saturday night, Ms. Garnaut said, “Places are all about memories.” Passing around drinks infused with tequila and served in shot-sized versions of Glamour’s finely etched glassware, the Australian restaurateur opined that her guests are more bummed than she is.

Though she is forfeiting the eight-year-old Glamour Bar space, Ms. Garnaut said she had last week also secured a new lease upstairs for her restaurant M on the Bund and plans to design a casual bar for its Crystal Room.

She plans no big adjustments for the rooftop-and-terrace restaurant M, the first upscale venue to locate on the then-dilapidated historic Bund when it opened in January 1999. But like several other venues along Shanghai’s riverfront this winter, it will briefly close for several repairs and fire-code upgrades.

“It was like your friendly bar, but also fancy,” said a local historian, Spencer Dodington. “They’ve got the views, they’ve got the service, they’ve got the flair.”

The Glamour Bar has hosted disco nights, all-pink parties and well-attended New Year’s celebrations that largely cater to expatriates. But it made its mark with the springtime Shanghai International Literary Festival.

Restaurateur Michelle Garnaut at the Glamour Bar M Restaurant Group

Ms. Garnaut plans to continue to host the event, possibly making it smaller and timed to coincide with a World Congress on Art Deco set for November in Shanghai. Ms. Garnaut said her plan is to focus the festival on “Shanghai between the wars,” a reference to the 1930s and the city’s age of opium dens, jazz and the Art Deco Bund itself.

A Shanghai touchstone cultural event, LitFest at Glamour has provided a rare stage in Shanghai for writers, photographers, musicians and other artists, including winners of the prizes like the Man Booker, MacArthur, Pulitzer and various Asian awards. Gore Vidal, Gish Jen, Vikram Seth, Anchee Min, Amy Tan and Colm Tóibín are among Glamour’s past speakers.

Shanghai prides itself on a glitzy, futuristic, neon image, and “Glamour Bar is one of the few places that is like that,” said Hong Kong-based writer Nury Vittachi.

Revisiting Shanghai’s rich colonial and brutal civil-war history was a regular theme at Glamour. It’s an apt location, upstairs in a 1921 former headquarters of a Japanese shipping company that features views over the prewar European style architecture that makes the Bund unique in East Asia, as well as a grand sweep of Pudong’s modern financial towers across the Huangpu River.

In past Glamour talks, writer Lynn Pan profiled gangsters from the French Concession days and former U.S. diplomat Tess Johnston delighted over the city’s backdrop of Art Deco architecture. Simpsons creator Matt Groening in 2012 filled the venue, as did cinematographer Christopher Doyle last year and more than once the Shanghai-born mystery writer Qiu Xiaolong.

Ms. Johnston said, “I’ve launched books there, I’ve talked there but mostly I’ve enjoyed being in the audience.”

"It is my favorite bar in the home city,” Mr. Qiu said by email. "But more importantly for me, Glamour Bar serves as a unique cultural salon hosting author talks, and a venue for Shanghai International Literary Festival, one of the best festivals in the world."

With her hair hanging to shoulder length, Ms. Garnaut dropped the news to stunned guests who were gathered Friday evening at Glamour for her annual holiday party, which she followed with a demand to drink up.

A minute later, a French chanteuse named Anne Evenou grabbed the microphone and crooned the 1940s song, “My Shining Hour.”

“I wanted to offer something to her because she gives so much to us,” Ms. Evenou said later. “Glamour Bar is the cultural center in Shanghai.”

Tweaking the final lines -- “This will be my shining hour. ‘Til I'm with you again” -- Ms. Evenou instead sang, “’til we’re all with Michelle again.”

-- James T. Areddy. Follow him on Twitter @jamestareddy

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