It started with an email. Tasha Parsons, a Londoner reader, had been scrolling through Instagram when suddenly their feed was inundated with pictures of manicured dogs. The posts, which referred to “little floofs” with “a lot of attitude”, came from a page called Maison De Floof, a luxury dog groomer in Epping. This was curious to Tasha: she had never followed this account, or even heard of it.
As it happened, the Instagram account in question had undergone a rebrand. It was previously owned by Goldie Saloon, a lesbian bar of extraordinary hype. More accurately, Goldie Saloon described itself as a “sexy, gay living room” — run by artist and gallery owner Ellie Pennick and her friend Mai Harris. It opened in summer 2024 as a space for the FLINTA community (an acronym that roughly refers to all members of the LGBTQ+ community except for cisgender gay men). In glowing reviews in the likes of Time Out and the Art Newspaper, it was praised as one of the best queer bars in London, a “great date spot” filled with “half the lesbians in east London” and “a haven for women who love art — and other women”. But as the hype swelled, so too did unsavoury rumours about what was really going on at Goldie Saloon.
With no prior warning, the bar closed and then this summer, with Pride month about to begin, its much-followed Instagram account was abruptly commandeered by a sea of Essex dachshunds.
“The question is: WTF happened! It’s causing some waves in the queer community,” Tasha’s email concluded.
I pledged to get to the bottom of the mystery (by which I mean I assumed it would be a simple case of a business buying an Instagram account). It was only after two months of frantic, bordering on obsessive, investigation, featuring deep dives into financial records, council licensing databases and anonymous interviews, that I was able to put together a picture of what may be one of the most bizarre sagas of my career to date. It’s an absurd story of sitcom proportions that pulls together a mansion full of mummified cats, secret business deals and a man only referred to as “the demon twink”.
Mummified cats, manicured dogs and a Sussex Police investigation
If you had to visualise the exact opposite of a hip lesbian bar in Hackney, it would look a lot like Maison de Floof. Sleek influencer grey interiors, a cursive sign (that helpfully has an English translation in the middle) and a home on the Epping high street in Essex. It was perhaps that contrast that made it so jarring for the former patrons of Goldie Saloon, when it suddenly appeared on their social media feeds offering an extra-large groom, with added tooth brushing, for £105. Beyond the Instagram page, de Floof had little footprint. On Companies House, it was listed as being owned by a woman named Lyla Thompson, who celebrated her 19th birthday in February.
This was the first clue in unravelling this Gordian Knot. Goldie Saloon’s own financial records show that alongside its two public owners — Pennick and Harris — there was a third, less conspicuous player. Enter Daniel Thompson — Lyla’s father. But there was almost no record of Daniel Thompson online anywhere. No identifiable social media, no professional websites, no mention anywhere that I could find apart from his entry on Companies House. It recorded that he was 47 years old, had run an array of now-shuttered businesses involved in building work and listed an address in rural Essex. He didn’t seem like the most obvious candidate to be heading up a FLINTA bar. The rural address led me to a former armoury used by Oliver Cromwell during the civil war: a huge haunted mansion, boasting a moat and a large collection of mummified cats that were placed (alive) in its walls centuries ago to ward off evil spirits.
My first thought was to contact Pennick — if anyone could tell me what had happened she could. Her gallery — called Guts — had shut down, but over email she stressed to me that while she was “integral in the initial setup” of Goldie Saloon, she “took a hands off approach due to my existing commitments to Guts”. She then unfortunately had to step away completely, due to a “medical crisis” and had no “knowledge of” what happened in the bar’s later life.
“I also want to make you aware that there is currently an active Sussex Police criminal investigation regarding targeted online harassment and false claims made about me,” she went on. “I mention this so you have the full picture and are not relying on inaccurate or malicious sources.” As shocking and intriguing as the email was, it made no mention of who Thompson actually was and how he got involved running a lesbian bar.
Londoner Live: Who is the real Andy Burnham?
In two weeks, we're hosting a special Londoner event about Andy Burnham and what he really believes. The Londoner's founder Joshi Herrmann will be joined on stage by four journalists who have covered our new prime minister closely over the years: Patrick Maguire from The Times, Helen Pidd from The Guardian and Jack Dulhanty from The Mill. The panel will be chaired by Beth Rigby from Sky News, and will tackle questions like: What actually is “Manchesterism”? And what will it mean for London?
It's on Wednesday 9 September, 6pm – 7.30pm, at London Scottish House, Westminster. Tickets are £15, or just £5 for paying Londoner members. We've already sold two thirds of the tickets so make sure to grab yours now before they sell out.
Click the button below to get yours.
At this point, I was obsessed. I lived and breathed the story. I started to mutter phrases to myself, like “was the FLINTA living room always a Maison de Floof all along?”, that made people look at me funny on the street. My wandering mind would sketch perfect pictures of tiny, amazingly manicured pomeranians, and they revisited me each night in my dreams, mocking my failure to solve the mystery.
While on deadline for exposés about drinking in Soho or Thames Water, I could feel the slow encroach of de Floof, and realising the futility of resisting, surrendered myself to scrolling through its Google reviews and Instagram page. I messaged former staff on LinkedIn, hit up breweries that could have supplied the bar, and pleaded to friends and contacts in the industry who may know anything at all about what happened.
Finally, a WhatsApp message arrived: “What happened, as you put it,” it read, “was that it was run by a prick who had no clue what he was doing!”
This story is free to read. You just need to sign up to join The Londoner's mailling list. And why wouldn't you? You'll get our journalism in your inbox the second we publish, keeping up to date on this and all our stories. No card details required.
Already have an account? Sign In
