In October, Trailer Happiness celebrated its 20th birthday. In two decades, the basement bar on London’s Portobello Road has survived changes in ownership, pandemic and flooding, enduring as the city’s most beloved tiki haunt and a globally treasured sanctuary of rum. Since 2012 it has been owned and operated by Sly Augustin, a Notting Hill native so synonymous with the venue that it’s a surprise he didn’t open it in the first place. That credit is owed to Jonathan Downey, the serial bar entrepreneur behind Milk & Honey and Match, who took over the site of a failed bar called Canvas.
“I was a customer before 2003 when the space was still Canvas,” says Augustin. “It was a bar that a guy had opened with his architect mates, they constructed this really beautiful space – all white floors, white leather seats and wood panelling, super-minimal Scandinavian vibes. It was an art bar, or what was known at the time as a ‘style bar’, and it was pretty out there. It had these massive revolving billboards of nipples, and people didn’t really understand it. The drinks were great, I loved it, but it was always empty.
“When Downey took it over, I think he wanted to get it up and running as quickly as possible, so they looked at what was already there. They had all of this wood panelling that lent itself towards 1970s era kitsch, which lends itself towards tiki and tropical drinks culture, which then lends itself to rum.”
Either by luck or design, Downey had struck on the perfect bar for Portobello Road and Notting Hill.
“Trailer Happiness is a perfect storm, but it’s exactly what Notting Hill is as well, it’s an accident. The only reason that the Caribbean contingent, the Windrush generation and the Irish ended up here was because it got bombed to shit during the war. A lot of Ladbroke Grove was slum. The landowners and homeowners moved out to the countryside and so it became this refuge for immigrants where you had a combination of cultures mixing. There was still wealth and affluence in the area, and the combination of these things created something that has authenticity and longevity. The best places are the ones that appeal to everybody.”
In 2012, Augustin took over the business from Downey’s business partner, Rick Weakley, despite having no professional background in hospitality. “The rumour is that Rick inherited the bar from Downey in lieu of a bonus,” says Augustin. “If Jonathon Downey had thought that Trailer Happiness was iconic or had potential outside of just being a local bar, I don’t know if he’d have necessarily just given it up. Because I had a good relationship with Rick as a customer, when he wanted to pass it on, he was happy to pass it on to me.
“When I took it in 2012 it was on a bit of a downward trajectory. It had become such a notorious party bar that people forgot it needed to make money to stay open, and I guess for many people, maybe it had run its course and they had run off to bigger and shinier things. But for me, because of my relationship with the bar and because I grew up in this neighbourhood, and this was my neighbourhood bar, I knew that Trailer Happiness presented something to the public that not many places did.
Hitting the right notes
“It ticks so many boxes, whether you want super-fancy cocktails, or just to hang out in a cosy environment with your mates, it can do so many things. I saw that back in 2012, and I felt it was too early for the bar’s story to end. Initially, I thought if I could get it to 10 years – that was when it had been open for just over eight – that would be a more fitting number to end it on. And here we are now at 20 and it’s better than it’s ever been.”
Augustin’s time at the helm hasn’t been without struggle. In July 2021, as London’s hospitality venues began to emerge from a hard-fought pandemic, flash floods drowned Trailer in a metre of water. If it wasn’t for Augustin, his team’s resolution and the outpouring from the industry, it could have spelt the end.
“When we flooded, people just came, random people showed up to help paint and do dirty work. People bought shirts and donated. I don’t know what we would’ve done without that support. There are people who are industry, people who aren’t, and even people who’ve never been here that love Trailer. I guess if you stick around long enough you can build an aura, and this bar is a special place.”
Under Augustin’s ownership, the bar has become an institution, its own fortunes mirroring the growing popularity of the category it champions. The authentic connection it has to its location and to rum creates a community and appreciation among its regulars that’s hard to match in modern hospitality.
“Trailer Happiness has grown as the rum category has grown, I see us as an embassy for rum. We’re a haven for rum lovers. There are only a few places in London to go to for serious rum lovers, there are even fewer to go to casually, and there are fewer still to go to casually and get into conversations with knowledgeable bartenders about rum and be able to try something you have never tried before. I guarantee we have a rum in our bar that you’ve never tried before.
“There are two sides to education. Spending time with rum enthusiasts but also spending time with consumers who are ignorant of rum. If you’re a rum specialist bar, it’s super important that you appeal to novices as well as seasoned professionals. People come in and don’t necessarily know they’ve come into a world-famous rum bar. They might even think they don’t like rum, but they do – they just haven’t had the right rum yet. But first and foremost, we’re a bar. That’s always the most important thing, that people come and have a good time.
“People ask me when I’m going to open another Trailer Happiness and I’d like to, but I would need to find a space like this in a community like this, and I don’t think that’s an easy thing to do.”
