Ali Burgess: Luck breeds happiness

Shay Waterworth finds how the twists and turns of a charmed life led to Ali Burgess’ current success

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IT IS OFTEN SAID YOU earn your luck, and Happiness Forgets creator Ali Burgess is a big advocate of this.

“I wouldn’t say I’ve just been lucky. I’ve been in the right place at the right time, but I worked super hard and I think that rewards your luck.”

Born on the outskirts of London, Burgess’s life could make a good Hollywood script.

“During college, work in a fish and chip shop was my first step into hospitality industry,” says Burgess.

“I really enjoyed the interaction so I did that for two years, but it all changed when I failed college. I was told to go out and get a full-time job and my parents didn’t want me working in a fish and chip shop. So I did the next best thing and got a job in a bar.”

Instead of starting as a bar back, he learned how to run and manage a bar, not make drinks.

“Years before I picked up a cocktail shaker I learned how to run a business,” he says.

Two years later, aged 20, he moved to a Bar Med and spent a further four years learning how to manage high street student bars and survive late nights in a much bigger venue.

His big break was the deputy manager role at Mook in London’s Notting Hill, where he became general manager a year later.

“I just remember thinking ‘holy crap, I’m responsible for running this business. It’s great’. Our profits boomed and that’s also where I got my first taste of making cocktails.”

Burgess’ next bit of luck came from an unlikely situation. Mook’s parent company was bought out, leaving him with a healthy redundancy. But the real bit of fortune was that it happened at the same time his then-girlfriend’s visa ran out.

“I was 28 with some spare cash so when she had to move back to the US, I said ‘see you in a month baby’.”

Burgess then spent three months unemployed in the Big Apple.

He puts his next big career move down to being in the right place at the right time. “One New Year’s Eve I met Sasha Petraske in Little Branch, just across the road from my flat. I probably came over as drunken idiot, but he told me Audrey Saunders was hiring for Pegu Club.”

Two days later, Burgess went to her home. Saunders wasn’t there but he gave his CV to Julie Reiner. When he eventually met Saunders, he presented a copy of Class magazine from 2003, which had reviewed one of the bars he worked at in London.

“Audrey was amazing. She let me work in Pegu Club with Naren Young. I thought I knew everything because I was from London, but I realised I knew fuck all.

“At this point I didn’t need an education in management – I needed an education in making drinks.

“When I was working at Pegu club an Australian guy took me to Brooklyn to buy a fake visa for $200 from a Mexican in Brooklyn – it’s such a cliché.”

Saunders gave Burgess a different perspective on bartending, but after a couple of years and a breakup with his girlfriend, he wanted another change.

“All I had wanted to do since I was 20 was open my own bar. I was nearly 30, living illegally in the US and I realised I needed to move back and open my own place.

“I got a job in a boutique hotel, stuck it out for eight months then realised ‘Oh my god, this is terrible. I’m having a terrible time in London.’”

Burgess decided that moving back to New York would salvage the situation. He handed in his notice at the hotel and got a part time role at Milk & Honey while waiting for his tenancy agreement to run out. But a week later he got a call about a bar space up for grabs.

“As soon as I walked down the stairs it took me five seconds to say ‘it’s perfect’.

“Three weeks from that day we opened. It was nuts. The whole project snowballed and the rest, as they say, is history. One of my favourite things is that people shorten the name of my bar to just ‘happiness’.

Burgess’ desire to be a leader as well as a top bartender has taken him to great heights, and he’s far from done. In 2014 he opened his second bar, Original Sin, and two years later Petit Pois, a boutique restaurant above Happiness Forgets. With big plans already lined up for 2018, Burgess will be looking out for his next bit of fortune on which to capatalise.