HS Helsinki | A favorite bar of managers and politicians was born in the middle of the deepest recession – This is the party cellar of “hundreds of divorces”

Sometimes a small accident changes the course of life completely. That’s what happened For Harri Aavaharju The recession of the early 1990s in Finland.

The HVAC engineer had been fired from his job, so he founded his own company and at the same time started focusing more and more on his great love, jazz.

Aavaharju played trumpet in the band and organized concerts.

The follow-up jams of one of the concerts held at the Savoy were organized at the Happy Days restaurant, which was located on the Esplanade at the site of the current restaurant Teatter.

“Happy Days offered free beers to callers and organizers. I noticed that an engineer-looking guy was standing at the counter, listening to music. I went on a whim to offer the man one sponsor beer”, Aavaharju recalls.

The man was Jorma Railonkoski.

While talking with his new acquaintance, Aavaharju had no idea that Railonkoski would soon found a jazz club and become its program manager for ten years.

The restaurant was named Storyville, and it opened 30 years ago in the middle of the deepest depression.

Jorma Railonkoski (1935–2022) was a civil engineer by training. He had moved into the restaurant business at the end of the 1970s and by the time the 1990s came, he had established several restaurants.

Railonkoski had a vision: Helsinki had to have a decent jazz club.

“Dad loved jazz, and jazz clubs were organized in many of his previous restaurants,” says the daughter Tuula Railonkoskiwho is currently running the family business with his sister Tarja Palomäki with.

In addition to Storyville, the Happy Hour Restaurants company also owns Rymy-Eetu, Hampton Bay and Kauppatori laituri summer terrace.

In the early 1990s, the idea of ​​a jazz-focused restaurant was strange, even crazy. Finland was reeling under the grip of a recession, and restaurants were drinking beer and singing karaoke.

Jazz seemed very elitist.

Railonkoski didn’t care about it. He had been looking for a model for his club in the birthplace of jazz in New Orleans and researched basement clubs in Paris, the kind he wanted to establish in Helsinki as well.

A suitable place was found at Museokatu 8. The underground space was originally built as a coal cellar, and most recently it had served as a warehouse for a street-level hi-fi shop.

“The space was barren, and water rippled on the floors. But Jorma saw opportunities where others did not. As an engineer, he knew how to study drawings and calculate surface areas and proportions,” Aavaharju recalls.

For Railonkoski, it was important that the materials were durable and classic: brick, wood, tin and wrought iron. Therefore, the interior of the restaurant downstairs has remained almost the same as when it was opened.

“When you make from genuine materials, it lasts. Jorma was very particular about the details: even the pieces of the tin roof had to be already rusted. Guess if it was easy to find them,” says Aavaharju.

Storyville opened its doors on January 27, 1993, and to the surprise of many, the restaurant became a huge hit. The line often stretched for half a block.

There was live music every night.

“Story took off like a rocket. The restaurant was suddenly a topic of conversation, a place to be, which was mentioned, for example, in the popular television program Hyvät, pahat ja rumat”, recalls Tuula Railonkoski.

“During a recession, everything is uncertain, but people still want to celebrate and forget their worries. It had been like that even during the Great Depression of the 1930s.”

Storyville has 270 customer places, but during the evening, 600 people could visit the restaurant. The customers were mainly 30-40-year-olds, who were typically wearing suits or jackets.

People sought company from the restaurant, which, according to Aavaharju, brought Storyville a reputation as a place where “hundreds of marriages and hundreds of divorces had taken place”.

Depression after abatement, a new economic upswing began, and it was also visible in Storyville. The companies’ representation and marketing budgets were large, and there were hardly any inquiries about credit card bills.

“Quite often the CEOs’ secretaries called that the gentleman’s credit card had been left at the restaurant. The pin had been left open and the card had been forgotten on the counter,” says Aavaharju.

Tuula Railonkoski continues: “At that time, the company’s credit cards were used carelessly. Those days are gone, unfortunately.”

Storyville’s location next to the Parliament building also brought a new clientele: members of parliament.

There was also a familiar sight in the restaurant with the trio, nicknamed Tupu, Hupu and Lupu: members of parliament Sauli Niinistö and Kari Häkämies and the sports director of Helsinki Anssi Rauramo.

Then, however, the loose money disappeared from the companies’ budgets. Companies no longer brought their guests to be sustainable in the same way as before, and even the MPs have echoed.

In the restaurant business the essential thing is the balance between change and preserving the old. In order for the restaurant to be interesting in the future, something new must be offered.

So Jorma Railonkoski came up with the idea of ​​a piano bar and a large outdoor terrace in Storyville.

However, for the terrace, he had to fight for almost five years with the licensing authorities, who considered the place next to the Parliament House to be far too valuable a place for drinking alcohol.

The terrace finally opened in June 2000. The first person to perform at the opening was M.A. Numminenwho mischievously sang his song With my wife in the park of the Parliament.

In the song, the couple looks at the MPs walking by, and the woman asks the man to offer him some mild white wine.

Storyville the summer terrace has become very popular – even so popular that many current customers don’t even know about the restaurant’s basement and its performance stage.

At the same time, it has been forgotten that the restaurant serves New Orleans-inspired food.

In the 1990s, Storyville was known for having a kitchen open until three in the morning every day. Today, the menu can be ordered until 11:30 p.m. from Thursday to Saturday.

The musicians who have performed in the restaurant have always received the same food as the customers. Aavaharju remembers the mad cow disease that caused a stir in the 1990s, which took beef from British restaurants.

“When performance deals were made with British musicians, they asked if they could still get that portion of Blackened Steak there. It was hard to find steaks in England.”

Although Storyville has been selected as one of the world’s 100 best jazz clubs, and there have also been changes to the musical lineup. Alongside jazz, other musical styles have been introduced.

Tuula Railonkoski says that Nostalgia discos will start in February in Storyville, where songs from the 1980s and 1990s will play.

The new program also includes the Vintage club and the Modern Jukebox evenings, where professional musicians play today’s hits in the style of past decades.

Although Harri Aavaharju is a jazz man through and through, he understands the new musical line.

“Jazz was youth music for my generation, but we are already gray-haired. For younger people, it doesn’t mean the same anymore. Times change.”

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