While the Friendship Stores date back to the early 1980's they do provide a reasonable range of western oriented grocery shopping and wine supplies at prices to compete with other expat grocery shopping stores like Jenny's, Jenny Lou and April Gourmet.

Other goods for sale will be marked at official prices in the Jingoumenwai Dajie store. While they assure quality, the prices are something to make you think twice about the need to buy.

However, you will not have to bargain and Friendship Stores do arrange shipping. There is also a smaller Friendship Store in the Sanlitun area on Sanlitun Beilu.

The foreign languages book section of a Friendship Store is worth a browse for both books and foreign newspapers and periodicals.

The Friendship Store was originally open only to foreigners, and remained off limits to ordinary Chinese until the 1990s. In those days, it was virtually the only place to buy certain goods.

Today the Friendship Store is a six-story emporium that is open to all.

Source: beijing-visitor.com