In­nis Fran­cis

The his­toric San Fer­nan­do build­ing known as Re­pub­lik Lounge is now at­tract­ing a new au­di­ence. Es­tab­lished in the 1950s as a neigh­bour­hood shop, the icon­ic venue has seen var­i­ous busi­ness trans­for­ma­tions and is now re­brand­ed un­der AS Bry­dens and Sons in part­ner­ship with Hen­nessy.

Re­cent­ly, AS Bry­dens and Sons made a sig­nif­i­cant in­vest­ment of near­ly $80,000 to col­lab­o­rate with the new own­er, Randy Singh. The part­ner­ship in­volved wrap­ping the ex­te­ri­or and in­te­ri­or of the build­ing on Sut­ton Street, San Fer­nan­do, with cap­ti­vat­ing Hen­nessy ab­stract art­work.

Orig­i­nal­ly owned and built as a restau­rant by William “Pud” Brown in the 1950s, the venue has re­tained its unique aes­thet­ics while un­der­go­ing in­te­ri­or ren­o­va­tions in the ear­ly 1990s. Af­ter chang­ing hands among busi­ness own­ers sev­er­al times, the lounge is now re­shaped to at­tract the vi­brant club life of “young en­tre­pre­neurs” in south Trinidad.

Trade ac­ti­va­tion ex­ec­u­tive for Moet Hen­nessy, Jonathan Nel­son, em­pha­sised AS Bry­dens and Sons’ com­mit­ment to part­ner­ing with lo­cal cre­atives.

“Re­pub­lik is the sec­ond art project AS Bry­dens and Sons has un­der­tak­en; the first was artis­tic works on a bas­ket­ball court in Mal­oney by a fa­ther and daugh­ter duo, Fitzroy and Safiya Hoyte,” he said.

“The project was two years in the mak­ing. Hen­nessy is try­ing to push the lo­cal con­tent of Trinidad and To­ba­go. The art­work is one of one, spe­cif­ic to Re­pub­lik. These are some of the projects we are go­ing to con­tin­ue do­ing in Trinidad go­ing for­ward. Re­pub­lik is the step­ping stone; the en­tire build­ing is cov­ered in this art­work.”

He added, “It is a mon­u­ment to Hen­nessy and clubs in Trinidad and To­ba­go. We are try­ing to bring back that club life and make sure lo­cal artists feel ap­pre­ci­at­ed. It has a mod­ern feel with a graf­fi­ti twist. We are try­ing to do a lot of iden­ti­ty cod­ing projects right now.”

Nel­son added that re­brand­ing Re­pub­lik Lounge was a strate­gic move to at­tract young en­tre­pre­neurs in south Trinidad to the es­tab­lish­ment. He point­ed out that the num­ber of clubs in Trinidad has sig­nif­i­cant­ly di­min­ished com­pared to the vi­brant scene of the 1980s and 1990s.

“We are try­ing to rein­tro­duce the club life back in­to Trinidad,” he said.