A 143-year-old Beijing roast duck restaurant may be closing for renovations but it is not about to let its ovens go cold. To maintain its tradition, the restaurant said it will keep embers from its wood-fired ovens burning during the six-month refurbishing job.

The oldest outlet of Quanjude Group of roast duck restaurants, on Qianmen Street in downtown Beijing, closed for business on Tuesday night.

A ceremony to preserve the oven fire, which the restaurant says has not been extinguished since it first opened in 1864, was conducted before the end of business at 8 PM on Tuesday.

According to the restaurant electronic board, the restaurant has served 115,330,259 ducks in over 140 years of service. It has hosted dinners for millions of people from all over the world, including former president of the United States George H. Bush, Japan's former Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu, former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and Cuba's President Fidel Castro.

"The electric board will stop tracking the ducks, but the stove has been burning for about a century and a half, and the fire will never die out," Jiang Junxian, chairman of the board of Quanjude Group Co. Ltd. said in an interview with Xinhua on Tuesday. He said the restaurant will keep embers burning in an ancient cooking vessel that will be kept on-site during the renovations.

"We have prepared a treasured vessel made of copper and will place the burning embers inside the vessel at 8 PM sharp," he said. According to Jiang, special staff will be assigned to add fuel each day to keep the fires burning.

Before the closure, many local residents rushed to the restaurant for a last bite in the old "lao dian" restaurant.

Jiang said during the last few days, daily sales jumped by about 50,000 yuan (US$6,470).