HS Helsinki In the middle of Kontula is a “drink-driven place” where amazing legends circulate – Now loyal customers sit at the table and reveal everything

Kontulan there is a semicircular tower on the edge of the mall square.

It looks a bit dingy, but also exotic and curious, even exciting. Like the whole buyer.

The Kontula shopping center was built in 1967 and its extension, which includes the tower, was completed in 1988.

Many locals hope that the tower will be preserved as part of the new center of Kontula, as it has become a regional landmark.

An idea competition was held in 2020 to renovate the center of Kontula, but town planning based on the results of the competition is not yet pending. And it has not yet been decided which buildings will be demolished and which will be preserved.

Whatever happened to the tower, it is worth finding out what kind of going has been seen inside it.

Best information about this is the old loyal customers of the restaurant Wenla, which has managed the tower from the beginning, which the current restaurateur Vu Tran has alerted the scene.

There they are already waiting on the red sofas and will soon tell stories about the larval board and the Pökäle of the Year.

But let’s talk first Jenni Keskista, President of the Restaurant Triangle Group. He started his career as an 11-year-old summer dishwasher at Wenla and is now piloting fifteen restaurants in Helsinki, including Lasipalatsi, Juttutupa, Weeruska and Meripaviljonk.

Father of Jenni Keskinen, founder of the Restaurant Triangle Group Tribe “Hemppa” Central founded the two top floors of the tower with restaurants Wenlan and Wiljon, which merged into Wenla. The open terrace at the top of the tower was glazed and became the nightclub Comeetta, a very outgoing place in the area.

“We divested Wenla and Cometa in 2008. They were the only beverage-driven locations in our group and decided to focus on food restaurants. Dad died a couple of years ago. ”

Jenni Keskinen had good memories of Wenla and the whole of Kontula.

“We never joined the buyer’s price competition, and we had some wonderful customers. Of course, Meininki was sometimes colorful, but communal. The restaurant managers put themselves in the league and know what to know to entertain customers. ”

What do you know what?

Let the squares tell.

Wenlla has gathered over a period of thirty years a close-knit group of about fifteen people. Its members are now present Asko Kuitunen, Seppo Roivas and Anne Hänninen.

Hänninen was once named Dog-Anne because there were as many as five Anne in the group. Häme still has two dogs.

Asko Kuitunen made his career as a car driver and often drank Jaffa on weekdays in Wenla. The fun crew enjoyed themselves.

“Everyone took what they took, and they didn’t resent it if they didn’t take anything.”

Life in a restaurant has not been a mere joy. Kuitunen has been to the funeral of seven regular customers. And one’s wedding.

Seppo Roivas invited the entire bar crowd to his wedding party upstairs in Wenla, a nightclub in Fontana.

“It was so hot that I asked the wedding guests to bring table fans. It was fun, there were a few standard fights, ”Roivas says and laughs.

Now is a good time to talk about the larvae.

It was a board engraved with five potholes. The board was handed to the bingo winner, filled with five pots. On bingo days, bingo was played once an hour.

Billiard club gathered on Saturdays, and the winner of the game received a koss bottle.

“The prize shoe had to be raised on a crying wall, on the Bridge of Sighs or in a badger bar,” says Hänninen.

The wall in front of Wenla, in front of which the restaurant’s customers run their lives, is called the Wailing Wall. The Bridge of Sighs leads to the health center.

Rope towing competitions were held on the bridge with the regular customers of the adjacent Aapel Bar. The rope pullers did not see each other as opponents pulled the rope around the corner.

“It was once wondered how Aapel’s gangs pulled with such force that we had to run full after the rope. Around the corner, it turned out that the rope was attached to the towbar of a moving car, ”says Roivas.

The badger bar was located in a nearby bush. It was a drinking area with its own drinks, with benches made of concrete.

“Ostar’s merchants set it up there when they wanted not to get drunk on the ostrich’s benches. There was also a canopy and for a while also Bajamaja, ”says Roivas.

The most thirsty began their mornings at the badger bar and moved indoors when the restaurant opened. If the bartender was a little late, queuers were offered free beers. The staff cooked a large pot of soup for guests in the mornings, which for many remained the only meal of the day.

“Soup was allowed to be chanted as much as he wanted. It often happened that one paid and five ate, ”says Anne Hänninen.

Heimo Keskinen distributed tickets to hockey matches to customers and paid for visits to the Group’s other restaurants and a seaside cottage with a sauna.

The trips competed in a playful way. A staff versus customer track was held in Santahamina.

Once a year, regular customers were given certificates of honor and statues purchased from the mall’s gift shops with engraved tiles attached to them.

Now we get to Pökäle of the Year. The title was given to a man who was in a hurry in the bathroom.

“A pair of loose shorts fell to the floor, and then the man didn’t show up for a couple of days,” Roivas recalls.

The porter, who is always outstretched, received the Grapple of the Year award and the female Kantis statue of the Year. The woman always made a loud noise before spinning.

Although the owners of the restaurant have changed over the years, the communality of the decks has been preserved. New customers have joined and the courts are still competing every Saturday on the mini golf course on the restaurant terrace from 12 noon to 3 pm.

The mini golf course was the idea of ​​Heimo Keskinen and for thirty years the terrace has been able to play mini golf and barbecue and eat your own snacks if you buy drinks from the restaurant. The current owner of Vu Tran continues the tradition.

The terrace will also host the Kontula Electronic Festival, which will host events at least every Friday next summer.

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