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A Manchester thread for all things Manc

Could anyone recommend an NHS dentist in South Manchester? Everywhere is private only and I can't afford £50 for a check up...
Mines on Platt lane. They only do NHS on particular days I think and I've no idea if they're taking on patients.

I think you can call NHS contact centre to find dentists who are taking new NHS patients.
 
There's a petition for The Briton's Protection, because the brewery have decided not to renew the lease for the current publicans. The Briton's Protection is one of the oldest pubs in the city centre

Signed.

Always been a pre-gig pub for me when I've been out and about in Manchester since a Mancunian mate of mine introduced me to it years ago. It's a lovely old gaff that's just perfect for a session in and is full of craftsmanship that you never see in modern buidings.

Manchester without the The Britons Protection would be like Liverpool without The Dispensary or Dr Duncan's.

Sadly I think this is post-covid brewery's cutting their cloth and maximising profits now the spirit of unity and community has left the building.
 
It might have something to do with this being built next door apparently.

Yeah, I was wondering if the brewery might prefer to kick the current publicans out so they could sell it to the developers.

I've just checked, it's listed, so the brewery can't sell it to the developers for them to knock down and develop a bigger site.


Weird, then. Although I think something similar happened with the pub next to the Beetham Tower/Hilton, ie I think that was an old school boozer that got modernised and made blander. Think that might've shut now, iirc, although might've been down to Covid-19.

Maybe breweries think that if there's a fancy new building they need to modernise the pub to attract clientele? But someone staying in an hotel is either going to want to have a few drinks in somewhere like the Hilton's Cloud 23 bar, or they're going to want to go to a restaurant or club or shopping. If they do want to hang round in pubs, do they want to go to the same bland gastropub you get in every city?

Tourists (and Mancunians) like the city's real pubs, like the Peveril of the Peak, The Castle, Sir Ralph Abercrombie, etc.
 
Yeah, I was wondering if the brewery might prefer to kick the current publicans out so they could sell it to the developers.

I've just checked, it's listed, so the brewery can't sell it to the developers for them to knock down and develop a bigger site.


Weird, then. Although I think something similar happened with the pub next to the Beetham Tower/Hilton, ie I think that was an old school boozer that got modernised and made blander. Think that might've shut now, iirc, although might've been down to Covid-19.

Maybe breweries think that if there's a fancy new building they need to modernise the pub to attract clientele? But someone staying in an hotel is either going to want to have a few drinks in somewhere like the Hilton's Cloud 23 bar, or they're going to want to go to a restaurant or club or shopping. If they do want to hang round in pubs, do they want to go to the same bland gastropub you get in every city?

Tourists (and Mancunians) like the city's real pubs, like the Peveril of the Peak, The Castle, Sir Ralph Abercrombie, etc.
Yea The Deansgate is shut, I think there's plans in for that site for a 22 story aparthotel as they're called but Green King were saying the pub will stay. I used to like it there as the only place on Deansgate that wasn't full of wankers but that would probably change when it reopens and I'm not arsed about drinking in town anyway. In fact the last few times I've been in on a Saturday night for gigs I've been very conscious of how mental it is.

I know I'm the exception but I never cared much for the Britons or the Pev. 'm fully aware they're the first pubs anyone ever recommends to people visiting Manchester though and to lose them would be massive. Nowhere would be safe effectively.
 
Britons is a fine example of a traditional pub and unfortunately tradition tends to get in the way of development. We sneer at the 60s for knocking everything down to replace with concrete, we've allowed the modern equivalent to happen at pace.
 
They're not knocking it down though, they're planning to manage it directly on the cheap to make more money. Seems to be the current trend with pub companies as have heard of other examples. I'd always assumed tenants were used in order to force them to take on much of the risk while screwing them over, but something seems to have changed in the economics of running pubs. Now it's about putting in your own team of badly paid staff and some dreadful branding.
 
Interesting pub crawl round Rusholme, Hulme , Moss Side from 1992 . Only one pub remaining ?

Mrs B lives round the corner from the first of those (most recently Hardy's Well - I thought it had only been closed a couple of years but maybe it's 2016). It does feel like a shame that so many of these pubs have closed down, but I guess there's been significant social and demographic changes over the last 30 years which make it unsurprising - there's a lot of non-drinking communities in the area these days for one thing...

On Friday night we went to a pop up pub in Birch Community Centre that some locals have started running monthly as there is zero pubs in the area left since Hardy's Well went - it was pretty busy. Hopefully something more permanent will spring up soon - there's been a lot of smaller community bars opening in Preston recently in areas where there used to be big victorian boozers which have closed down.
 
Mrs B lives round the corner from the first of those (most recently Hardy's Well - I thought it had only been closed a couple of years but maybe it's 2016). It does feel like a shame that so many of these pubs have closed down, but I guess there's been significant social and demographic changes over the last 30 years which make it unsurprising - there's a lot of non-drinking communities in the area these days for one thing...

On Friday night we went to a pop up pub in Birch Community Centre that some locals have started running monthly as there is zero pubs in the area left since Hardy's Well went - it was pretty busy. Hopefully something more permanent will spring up soon - there's been a lot of smaller community bars opening in Preston recently in areas where there used to be big victorian boozers which have closed down.
The pubs near Cities ground Maine Road must have felt the crunch when the club moved to East Manchester
 
Mrs B lives round the corner from the first of those (most recently Hardy's Well - I thought it had only been closed a couple of years but maybe it's 2016). It does feel like a shame that so many of these pubs have closed down, but I guess there's been significant social and demographic changes over the last 30 years which make it unsurprising - there's a lot of non-drinking communities in the area these days for one thing...

On Friday night we went to a pop up pub in Birch Community Centre that some locals have started running monthly as there is zero pubs in the area left since Hardy's Well went - it was pretty busy. Hopefully something more permanent will spring up soon - there's been a lot of smaller community bars opening in Preston recently in areas where there used to be big victorian boozers which have closed down.
You ever been to the Old Abbey Taphouse in Hulme? That's an interesting one.
 
You ever been to the Old Abbey Taphouse in Hulme? That's an interesting one.
I've not been down there since the Abbey Pond occupation / eviction, circa 1994, very early Manc eco-activism, on a wildlife site next to the pub which is now soulless science park. Afterwards I just never wanted to see the end result. Can't remember a fecking thing about what the pub was like back then mind.
 
I understand it's been bought by MMU recently, not totally sure what they've got planned though
Recently? When and where did you hear that? Before the pandemic, I went to a meeting in the yard theatre opposite (the space in the Yellowbricks/Homes for Change/Work for Change) that was hosted by the developer's architects.

It had been bought by a guy from the Middle East (Saudi Arabian, iirc), not to develop and flog for profit, but as an investment for his family.

Plan was to retain The Junction, convert the basement into a performance space, ground floor reopens as a bar, first floor is a flat, and then they also have a flat on the reinstated second floor, albeit a contemporary version not a fascimile. Apparently, the pub used to have another floor on top, but it was lost to a fire. I didn't know that and I've lived in Hulme nearly 20 years.

To summarise, basement performance space, ground floor bar, first and second floor turned into a flat on each floor.

Then the plans for the car park was a block of flats (not high rise, iirc, four or five?) with retail units on the ground floor facing the road. Feedback from the community at the meeting was that they didn't want takeaways or big chain (no Tesco Express, for example), they wanted independent retailers, although the architect mentioned having been in talks with a potential tenant to turn the commercial space into an art gallery.

That was pre-pandemic. I haven't heard anything recently about a sale to MMU.

MMU or MMU student union bought The Salutation (the Sally) a while back, turned a community boozer into a student pub.

The problem with positioning a tiny café hospitality/catering business in a local neighbourhood at students, as Grano on Stretford Road found out, is that they fuck off home for Christmas, Easter, and Summer, when many of them fuck off and leave the area altogether, and then your business dies, because you've alienated all the locals by making it clear you're very welcoming towards students, not so welcoming towards the people who live on the business' doorstep, week in, week out, month in, month out, year in, year out. And they sacrificed the longevity of their business on the basis of attracting the custom of people who were going to be around for around 30 weeks, while ignoring and not cultivating the custom of people who've lived there years.

I don't know how the Sally's faring nowadays, I'd guess likewise? Especially with lots of students going home/staying home and studying remotely
 
Recently? When and where did you hear that? Before the pandemic, I went to a meeting in the yard theatre opposite (the space in the Yellowbricks/Homes for Change/Work for Change) that was hosted by the developer's architects.

It had been bought by a guy from the Middle East (Saudi Arabian, iirc), not to develop and flog for profit, but as an investment for his family.

Plan was to retain The Junction, convert the basement into a performance space, ground floor reopens as a bar, first floor is a flat, and then they also have a flat on the reinstated second floor, albeit a contemporary version not a fascimile. Apparently, the pub used to have another floor on top, but it was lost to a fire. I didn't know that and I've lived in Hulme nearly 20 years.

To summarise, basement performance space, ground floor bar, first and second floor turned into a flat on each floor.

Then the plans for the car park was a block of flats (not high rise, iirc, four or five?) with retail units on the ground floor facing the road. Feedback from the community at the meeting was that they didn't want takeaways or big chain (no Tesco Express, for example), they wanted independent retailers, although the architect mentioned having been in talks with a potential tenant to turn the commercial space into an art gallery.

That was pre-pandemic. I haven't heard anything recently about a sale to MMU.

MMU or MMU student union bought The Salutation (the Sally) a while back, turned a community boozer into a student pub.

The problem with positioning a tiny café hospitality/catering business in a local neighbourhood at students, as Grano on Stretford Road found out, is that they fuck off home for Christmas, Easter, and Summer, when many of them fuck off and leave the area altogether, and then your business dies, because you've alienated all the locals by making it clear you're very welcoming towards students, not so welcoming towards the people who live on the business' doorstep, week in, week out, month in, month out, year in, year out. And they sacrificed the longevity of their business on the basis of attracting the custom of people who were going to be around for around 30 weeks, while ignoring and not cultivating the custom of people who've lived there years.

I don't know how the Sally's faring nowadays, I'd guess likewise? Especially with lots of students going home/staying home and studying remotely
Used to love the Salutation
 
Mrs B lives round the corner from the first of those (most recently Hardy's Well - I thought it had only been closed a couple of years but maybe it's 2016). It does feel like a shame that so many of these pubs have closed down, but I guess there's been significant social and demographic changes over the last 30 years which make it unsurprising - there's a lot of non-drinking communities in the area these days for one thing...

On Friday night we went to a pop up pub in Birch Community Centre that some locals have started running monthly as there is zero pubs in the area left since Hardy's Well went - it was pretty busy. Hopefully something more permanent will spring up soon - there's been a lot of smaller community bars opening in Preston recently in areas where there used to be big victorian boozers which have closed down.
Grants Arms became Afewe (although many still referred to it as the Grant's Arms) but then it closed after the landlord lost his licence after a stabbing (in the street outside the pub), after a private party that had been held inside the pub.

The cops and the council were racist fucks, at the licensing hearing, a room full of white people clutching their pearls about 'gangs' (ie code for black people). The Junction had been raided by cops due to incidents but not shut down. (Run by white guy.) But there's one incident, that's not even in the pub, and the racist authorities strip the black landlord of his livelihood. Total, utter cunts.

It's now a children's nursery.
 
I don't know how the Sally's faring nowadays, I'd guess likewise? Especially with lots of students going home/staying home and studying remotely
I think the students are all back now, and have been since September last year - the student fleshpots I pass on my wanders seem to be full to pre-pandemic levels (I've not been past the Salutation recently, but no reason to think it's any different)
 
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