Excerpt from Street of Eternal Happiness by Rob Schmitz, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

The idea for the sandwich shop came to him after he visited one in Chicago. It had been his only trip to the United States, and he came away impressed with what is a part of everyday life for Americans. It was like an American returning from China inspired by a noodle stand. It was random, and such an approach might have seemed reckless and naïve to Western businessmen who peruse market studies for months before crafting a business plan. But the method was typical of many small business owners I met along the street. In a city as big and rich as Shanghai, you could sell anything if you put your mind to it.

CK dreamed that one day this artsy second-floor sandwich shop would become his main livelihood. He had invested years' worth of earnings from selling accordions into this place, pooling money with a friend's to create a space they hoped would attract young musicians and artists like them.

"One day I had an idea: maybe I can get all these people together and unite them," CK told me. "I want to find people who want to free themselves from the overall system. I want friends like me; entrepreneurs who have independent ideas in art, fashion design, lots of different industries."

Ambitions like CK's made the Street of Eternal Happiness a fascinating stroll: tiny shops and cafes like his lined the narrow thoroughfare, the dreams of bright-eyed outsiders stacked up against each other, all looking to make it in the big city.

It wasn't easy. Neither CK nor his friend Max had any experience working at – much less owning – a restaurant. The two had met in 2011 at an antique camera shop in the former French Concession where CK had taken a part time job to learn more about photography. Like CK, Max had a background as an entrepreneur, and through long conversations at the camera shop each had come to appreciate the others' business savvy and approach to making and selling product.

They named the shop Your Sandwich. It was two blocks from a busy subway station, in the shadow of a 45-story skyscraper that spit out hundreds of office workers each day at noon in search of a quick lunch. But nobody could see Your Sandwich. No one ever looked up through the canopy of the Plane trees while strolling the Street of Eternal Happiness.

So they changed the name to 2nd Floor. It was a hint to passersby that they should elevate their gaze as they passed. Below the new name, in diminutive typeface were the words: Your Sandwich. They also changed chefs, constructed a bar with mixed drinks and imported beer, and obsessively tweaked the menu. One day I dropped by CK's apartment and noticed a pile of electronic tablets stacked in the corner. "Touchscreen menus!" CK told me with a smile. Certainly, he figured, their drab, non-interactive menus had to be the reason the iGeneration wasn't eating there.

For someone who had built a profitable accordion business so quickly, CK was naïve as a food and beverage man. Lunch crowds — typically office workers struggling to pay rent — tended to opt for cheap local food, and they preferred eating cooked food aided by the distance of chopsticks. In the coming months, he adjusted to these realities. He inserted affordable lunch sets, and tweaked the sandwiches on offer. Through it all, CK didn't seem worried about his empty sandwich shop. Selling accordions was a reliable source of revenue, and he felt fortunate to manage both businesses inside a place of his creation, like a jittery squirrel stashing nuts for the winter inside his cozy tree house.

It was a sanctuary within a sanctuary. The surrounding neighborhood was founded as a refuge for outsiders. After losing the first Opium War in 1842, the Qing Dynasty court handed over parts of Shanghai and other Chinese port cities to Western colonial powers. The French occupied this section of the city and transformed what was an expanse of rice paddies into an exclusive neighborhood, establishing the French Concession in 1849. Since then, one group after another had sought shelter there. In 1860, the French allowed tens of thousands of local Chinese to take up residence to escape the Taiping rebellion, a violent peasant uprising against the dynasty. Later on, theatres, cinemas, and dance halls — frowned upon by the ever-changing Chinese leadership of the city — were allowed to flourish under French protection. Churches, temples, and mosques soon followed.

Excerpted from Street of Eternal Happiness by Rob Schmitz. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.