The man behind one of Prestwich’s most successful independent businesses has shared a moving statement this morning as the thriving neighbourhood readies for the arrival of Rudy’s.
Dan Edwards, owner of Chips @ No. 8, has spoken out on chains ‘piggybacking on the the successes’ and dreams of all the many, many local favourites that have made Prestwich into one of the UK’s best places to live (not just our word, either – The Times said it too).
His statement comes on the week that work has begun on the former Barclays bank on the high street, ready for the arrival of Rudy’s – that ever-expanding pizza giant that started life in Manchester and is now infiltrating every corner of Britain with its Neapolitan pizzas.
And it’s rumoured that a Gail’s bakery (a big London name) might also be moving in just across the road in the former Natwest bank.
Now Dan has shared a powerful statement addressing his fears that these chains will change the face of this proudly independent corner of Greater Manchester.
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“I fear you’ll forget us,” he wrote.
He vocalised concerns from the suburb that the tiny, family-run, independently-owned, much-loved cafes, bars, restaurants and shops based in Prestwich won’t be able to compete with the ‘unlimited marketing budgets, fancy gimmicks, big shiny interiors’ of Rudy’s and Gail’s.
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He said that he’s worried this will drive rents even higher and attract even more chains (at the minute, Costa and KFC are really the only high street names along Bury New Road).
Rudy’s will be moving into this unit in Prestwich. Credit: The Manc GroupPizzas from an existing Rudy’s in Altrincham. Credit: The Manc Group
Dan said that it feels as though the chains are ‘piggy backing the dreams, the visions, the hopes and mostly successes of the independent businesses that helped establish Prestwich as a community that we can be proud of’.
He listed many of the local spots who ‘drove the scene’, from the beautiful cafe-bars like Cuckoo, All The Shapes, and Grape to Grain, to restaurants like The Pearl and Dokes (we would, obviously, like to add Chips @ No 8 to that list).
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And while Rudy’s and Gail’s will be ‘great additions’ to Prestwich, Dan stressed that these places ‘aren’t unique’.
He wrote: “Their owners don’t live in Prestwich, their kids don’t go to school here. It’s likely they won’t be shopping here.”
And he pleaded: “Support local, support independent. Please. More than ever we all need you.”
Dan Edwards’ statement on Prestwich’s future, and Rudy’s arrival, is below in full
“With the recent news that Rudy’s are finally starting work at the old Barclays and the rumours that Gail’s Bakery secured the lease at the old NatWest being confirmed, we can, and rightly so, get excited.
“Prestwich’s tag of an “up and coming” town really is a thing! The chains have identified it as such and are moving in! The impending redevelopment of the precinct has hastened the charge. Will chains, arrive there too? I hope not.
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“The chains are piggy backing the dreams, the visions, the hopes and mostly successes of the independent businesses that helped establish Prestwich as a community that we can be proud of.
“Cuckoo, ATS, G to G, The Pearl, Dokes, KCB, Macca’s, Tito’s, Butterfingers, Hideaway, Us, Everyone Else, all the great little places in Prestwich Village that offer something different, something great, somewhere you can get excited about to share your secret culinary pleasure when family or friends come to visit. We all laid foundations. We all drove the scene.
The Pearl. Credit: The Manc GroupInside Cuckoo, an original Prestwich independent. Credit: The Manc GroupFood at Chips & No 8. Credit: The Manc GroupGrape to Grain in Prestwich. Credit: The Manc GroupA few of the businesses Dan named in his statement about the arrival of Rudy’s in Prestwich
“Don’t get me wrong, they’ll be great additions. They’ll give us more choice and they’ll be great places to eat. They’ll give us another reason to get excited about when family or friends come to visit.
“Only, they won’t be a secret, there’s loads of them. Chances are, your visitors have already been, albeit somewhere else, in a different town. They aren’t unique, and they aren’t independently owned. Their owners don’t live in Prestwich, their kids don’t go to school here. It’s likely they won’t be shopping here.
“They won’t panic when they have a bad trading day, they won’t worry that the VAT bill is only days away and there’s not enough money in the pot. They have shareholders, investors, fancy lawyers and fancy accountants, deep pockets and big buying power.
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“They won’t be concerned that “Dave’s” place round the corner has seemed quiet for a little too long now, “I hope they survive”.
“I hope they do well, I hope they bring people in, I hope they give us exposure to a wider audience, I hope we can have our turn being carried by the piggy.
“I fear they’ll bring more chains, I fear they’ll drive rents higher, I fear that “Dave’s” place round the corner doesn’t stand a chance, I fear they’ll dazzle us with unlimited marketing budgets, fancy gimmicks, big shiny interiors.
“I fear you’ll forget us. Support local, support independent. Please. More than ever we all need you.”
The very best and booziest bottomless brunches in Manchester city centre
Danny Jones
If you’re looking to find the very best bottomless brunch places Manchester city centre has to offer, then look no further.
You’ll probably be struggling to see straight after you finish brunching anyway, but that’s all part of the fun, isn’t it?
In Manchester, we love a good brunch like the best of them.
Getting stuck into some free-flowing drinks with your friends around a table of food is a match made in heaven if you ask us.
To help you achieve your ultimate bottomless brunch goals, we’ve put together a list of some of our top spots in Manchester to help you find the right one for you.
One of Manchester’s most popular bars has recently relaunched its Hip Hop Orchestra Brunch, with live music, bottomless drinks and food.
At Blues Kitchen, you can tuck into soul food-inspired mains like fried chicken and gravy, taco bowls, shrimp sandwiches and beef dip melts, with 90 minutes of unlimited drinks for £35 per person.
And in true Blues Kitchen fashion, there’ll of course be live music aplenty, from live soul and R&B in the bar to the house band playing upstairs in the gig space.
There are loads of options and packages to check out – head HERE to make your booking.
Bordering two of Manchester city centre‘s coolest and best foodie neighbourhoods, the team who run the show over at Ramona and Firehouse during the day and well into the night have become famous around the UK for their Detroit-style pizza, loaded tater tots, margaritas and good vibes.
Better still, you can turn those Cali peps slices, helpings of fresh burrata, spicy margs, mimosa and more bottomless at just £38pp.
Between 12pm and 4pm on Saturdays and Sundays, you can get any slice of pizza plus frozen margs, selected spritzes, prosecco and Ramona pilsner.
3. New Century – NOMA
New Century in Manchester serves a great bottomless brunch. Credit: The Manc Group
All the traders from the New Century food hall band together at the weekends to serve up a bottomless brunch with more menu options than anywhere else in the city.
You can order a brunch item from any trader inside – and that includes egg banh mis from Banh Vi and chicken and waffles from Parmogeddon – then add on a bottomless drinks package for 90 minutes.
Options include bottomless lager, stout, IPA, cider, prosecco, and Aperol Spritzes for £30 (including one brunch item), or for an extra fiver you can also get Pornstar Martinis and Bloody Marys.
The Peaky Blinders bar on Peter Street grows more popular year after year, and not just because people enjoy dressing up in fancy old-world clobber and coming along to see the lookalikes – it’s the birdcage of tasty bites, ‘Cherry Ada’s and ‘Shel-bee’ whiskey-based specials that keep them coming back.
There are different bottomless brunch menus available every Friday, Saturday and Sunday, from classic brunch platters to steak and fries to bottomless roast dinners.
And they all come with endless cocktails, beers, spirits and more drinks, with bottomless packages between £37.50 and £40.
5. Sexy Fish – Spinningfields
One of the fanciest new openings in Manchester, Sexy Fish, serves one of the city’s swankiest bottomless brunches.
For £48 per person, you can indulge in a range of starters, unlimited sushi from the sushi buffet, a main course with a side, and desserts.
Or you can just have your fill at the sushi buffet for £28 per person.
Then you can add on free-flowing cocktails for £30 per person or indulge in limitless bubbles from £34 per person.
6. Diecast – Piccadilly East
Diecast in Manchester does a bottomless brunch with its frozen daiquiris.
90 minutes of pure drag entertainment is what’s on the menu at Diecast in Piccadilly East, as Dragstravaganza takes over for an interactive bottomless battle.
There are also more regular bottomless brunch offerings, where you can choose a pizza from the menu plus add on 90 minutes of frozen daiquiris.
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The event schedule is a busy one so check HERE to book your bottomless at Diecast.
Another solid Manchester bottomless brunch spot is Banyan, offering two hours of the good stuff for £36.95 and free reign on their food menu – we’re talking breakfast hash, Korean fried chicken burgers, flat iron steak and curry.
You can go bottomless in the evenings too for £39.95.
And endless drinks include loads of their house cocktails, plus your usual suspects like prosecco, beer and spirits.
A Pan-Asian bottomless brunch with dishes like an Asian twist on a full English, a Rendang roti, a Bali brunch bowl and Bang Bang steak and eggs? Sign us up.
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Running seven (yep, seven!) days a week, the Tampopo bottomless (and they have two restaurants in Manchester) includes 90 minutes of free-flowing bubbles, lager, rum beach buckets and house cocktails, plus any brunch plate or vegetarian, chicken or pork large plate.
Not bad for £38 a head.
9. Italiana Fifty-Five – Great Northern Warehouse and Castlefield
Italiana Fifty-Five does bottomless Aperol brunch and a tower of treats at all three of its Manchester restaurants
Next up is one we’d consider an old faithful: Italiana Fifty-Five, formerly known as Cibo. With three sites in Manchester, now including one in Didsbury. We’ve had this particular bottomless brunch so many times now we’ve lost count but it never disappoints.
Available every Friday, Saturday and Sunday with sittings between 12pm and 7.30pm, you’ll be presented with a tower of Italian treats and endless cocktails, including Aperol Spritzes.
Bottomless tapas and sangria at Canto puts a Portuguese twist on boozy brunch proceedings over in Ancoats. The sister site of AA Rosette restaurant, El Gato Negro, this is what they call ‘tipsy tapas’.
Priced at £40 a head, you get a choice of three plates each and 90 minutes of unlimited drinks with choices like sangria, fizz, bellinis, house wine and lager.
Tapas choices include options like jamón croquetas, salt cod fritters, patatas bravas, crispy squid and plenty more. Never fails.
One of the best bottomless brunches in Manchester? Don’t mind if we do. They keep it simple at Elnecot as you just opt for your unlimited drinks on top of the usual but you’ll hear no complaints from us whilst we’re sipping on house Cosmos, mimosas, Bloody Marys, boozy ice teas and lager.
Brunch dishes, meanwhile, feature the likes of crispy pork belly with rosti, fried eggs, savoy kimchi, Elnecot chilli jam and yoghurt; wild mushrooms on toast with goat’s curd and dukkah, as well as Elnecot’s full English and eggs on toast, just to name a few.
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Bottomless drinks are £26 per person, plus whatever brunch dish you want, for two hours of drinking time.
12. The Bay Horse Tavern – Northern Quarter
Credit: The Manc Eats
Affectionately known by locals as ‘Horse-moor’, the boozy brunch menu at upmarket NQ pub The Bay Horse Tavern is a pretty traditional affair dish-wise, although there is a funky peanut butter, bacon and fried banana croissant bad boy to be found here too.
Priced at £32.50 for a dish and unlimited drinks until 4pm every weekend, think egg, bacon and sausage butties; fry-ups; poached and scrambled eggs (they do eggs really well here) mushrooms, avo and smoked salmon on toast, as well as fizz, Irish coffee, beer, mimosas, bloody marys and house wine. Easy.
Maybe one of the more expensive on this list but worth every penny, Gaucho’s ‘Electro Brunch’ is one of the Manchester OGs and it also happens to be one of the best steaks in town. Setting you back £65, it’s all about the beef here which is wet-aged and can be cut with a butter knife it’s that soft.
The music-fuelled all-you-can-eat midday feast also features cocktails like pornstar martinis and Aperol spritz alongside glasses of Argentinian Domain Chandon and even includes a brunch dessert of smoked chocolate ganache. They have a maximum of eight drinks per person but, let’s be honest, that’s plenty.
Another more boujee, boozy brunch option is at Gordon Ramsay’s very own Lucky Cat.
For 90 minutes, you can enjoy endless prosecco alongside a two-course meal, with dishes like vegetable tempura, crispy beef rice bowls, and teriyaki salmon.
You can also add dessert platter for an extra tenner or upgrade from prosecco to champagne for £20. This is definitely a more classy excuse to get tipsy, whilst enjoying some proper high-quality food.
Fress is an award-winning white-subway tiled restaurant on Oldham Street that often has queues out the door for its bottomless boozy brunch. There’s a hearty menu featuring all the favourites, from a full English and beans on toast to mouth-watering waffles and pancakes, but it’s the sweet stuff we go for.
With a 1 hour 15 minute £37 per person sitting (that price includes a main from the menu) drinks choices include prosecco, mimosas, house wine and lager.
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16. Zouk Tea Bar and Grill – Quadrangle
Credit: The Manc
Just off Oxford Road Corridor, you’ll find one of the very best bottomless brunches in Manchester and it’s over at Zouk — also one of the best places for a curry in town that you can enjoy bottomless style, but that’s a separate matter. Two plates and as much booze as you can stomach. Glorious.
Either way, for £35 a pop from 11am to 4.30pm every Saturday, you can get an incredible South Indian and Pakistani-inspired menu featuring everything from masala omelettes to the ‘Bollywood Benedict’ and SO much more. Absolutely slaps every single time.
A favourite amongst the flag-waving bottomless brunch brigade, we can’t think of many places that come more immediately to mind than Manahatta on Deansgate. Two whole hours of non-stop booze and some Insta-worthy scran for £36.95 until 3pm and you can upgrade to any dish for an extra fiver.
Manahatta’s brunch menu features a wide range of spritzes, bloody marys or lager to enjoy alongside plates that range from Mexican wraps to breakfast hash, pancakes, steak frites and other NYC-inspired plates. You can also book big parties and the main menu for £41.95.
18. The Pen and Pencil – NQ
Another long-standing favourite over ours, you’ll find plenty of people heading to The Pen and Pencil when they’re round Northern Quarter way and after a solid bottomless brunch.
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Their bottomless brunch runs on the last Saturday of every month, costs £50 and will leave you full to bursting – and that’s just the booze part.
You’ve got all of the staple egg dishes, pancake stacks and more, as well as all your classic cocktails – and you can eat and drink as much as you like.
Very similar vibes here – no list of the best bottomless brunch places in Manchester is complete without BLVD, the Spinningfields venue without the vowels but all the flavour, putting their own unique spin on things with a selection of small plates like veg tempura to duck spring rolls to salt and pepper chicken wings.
You can choose two small plates, one side, and then dive in to different flavours of Bellinis, prosecco, rum punch, gin smash cocktails, vodka raspberry ripples, and bottled beers.
It costs £35 per person and is available every day that BLVD is open.
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20. Crazy Pedro’s – NQ and Deansgate
Yes, Crazy P’s does do bottomless brunch and yes it is mint. Enjoy unlimited slices from their ever-rotating daily menu of crazy pizza concoctions, as well as non-stop Hooch, beer, prosecco and their classic Frozen Margz for 90 minutes
It’s just £29.50pp for pure carbs and the fun-time juice when you book and it also happens to be ‘r Amy’s favourite pizza place and quite a few of us would probably agree with her.
21. Shack Bar and Grill
Shack’s brilliant disco brunch starts from £32.50 per person, with a few levels of drinks packages if you want to step things up a little bit.
Dishes include French toast, chorizo chilli eggs, breakfast buns, and absolutely massive pancake and waffle stacks, plus a full menu of grilled cheeses, wraps and burgers.
In our opinion, Ducie Street Warehouse quietly does some of the best bottomless brunch in Manchester, there just aren’t enough people that know about it, so we’re fixing that. Croque monsieurs, pancake stacks, breakfast baps and more. This menu is elite.
Changing themes each month, as well as wheeling out their ‘disco’ brunch every Saturday, their parties (and believe us, they are) will set you back £42.
Once again, no list of bottomless brunch hotspots in Manchester city centre would be complete without the Deansgate cornerstone that is Dirty Martini. Someone pass us a phone, we need another picture in front of them wings because the last 20 or so weren’t quite good enough.
Just as good during the day as it is for a night out, their bottomless brunch costs £37.50pp on Fridays and Saturdays but their Martini brunch from Sunday-Thursday is the cheaper option at just £30.
24. Almost Famous – Great Northern and NQ
We will take any excuse to head to one of the best burger joints in Manchester so, naturally, the fact Almost Famous also does bottomless brunch is ideal. Available Friday-Sunday from 12-3pm, you get the standard 90-minute sitting from £37.50pp.
Get ready for this: get absolutely ANY famous burger with winning or bacon bacon fries and chicken nuggets as well a free run at as much draught beer, cider, prosecco and cocktails as you fancy sinking. We call that heaven.
25. Foundry Project – NQ
Finally, the Foundry Project over on Thomas Street does a bang-up bottomless brunch with plenty of variety for just £36 per person.
Hash brown nachos, breakfast brioche, fry-ups, brunch burgers and more to go with prosecco, bellinis, mimosas, Aperol spritz or pints of Amstel. What more could you possibly want?
It goes without saying that there aren’t plenty more places we could have out on this list and we’re sure it’ll keep growing over time, but 25 should do you for now.
Manchester really does have some of the best bottomless brunch culture in the country and we’re saying that with our chests, so don’t even try and argue with us.
And if you’re just looking for really good morning/early afternoon scran that isn’t necessarily bottomless, you can also check out our list of the best breakfast and brunch places in Manchester city centre — and yes, there’s plenty of overlap.
Gig review | Catfish at Heaton Park, Manchester – are the Bottlemen properly back?
Danny Jones
10 months on from their last gig and more than a year since they officially ended their hiatus, Catfish and the Bottlemen finally returned to Manchester for a sold-out show at Heaton Park, and while the reviews online have been mixed, we had a blast heading back to the fields again.
Making their Manc comeback just hours before this year’s Parklife Festival got underway, the beloved Welsh band had stirred lots of worry leading up to the day itself and, in truth, even in the moments leading up to (and after) their stage time.
Apart from their huge headline slot at Reading and Leeds, 2024 was the year of cancellations and controversy, so their fans had plenty of reason to be concerned. Nevertheless, we had faith and kept our spirits high, especially with the weather holding out.
Local legends and indie rock veterans James certainly helped on that front, delighting both die-hards watching from up on the hill and younger gig-goers who may have only heard a few of the big hits like ‘Sit Down’ – though they certainly didn’t heed that message, there was merely jumping up and down.
Some great computer-generated imagery backdropped the set.We watched this thing like a hawk.You can read our recent interview with them HERE. (Credit: Audio North)
Once the main support act had wrapped up their pretty perfectly timed set, we’ll admit, standing on that grass felt like an eternity, especially considering Catfish had us waiting an extra 15 minutes beyond their expected arrival at Heaton Park.
You could call it fashionably late, but in this case, it saw several people around us uttering, ‘they’re not coming on any time soon’, and some even beginning to walk off.
However, they did eventually arrive just over a quarter of an hour past schedule, and the eruption of cheers from the crowd and a fair few screams from those nearest the barrier signalled what summed up the entire night: we were just so happy to have them back.
We’ve heard people debating the sound quality and taking issue with parts of Van’s performance, but we’ll just leave this here and let you decide for yourselves:
One thing’s for sure: the energy was immaculate from start to finish.
From kicking things off with ‘Longshot’ for a limb-worthy intro, to hearing a fully acoustic version of ‘Hourglass’ as the lead singer stood alone on the dramatically lit main stage, soon to be followed up by a plethora of Parklife acts, we’d wager you they’ll remain a tough act to follow all weekend.
Other highlights included an entire park’s worth of people belting every word to ‘Kathleen’, ‘Fallout’, ‘Pacifier’ and pretty much every track they played, as well Van having the crowd repeat the chorus of ‘Cocoon’ as he hung up his guitar from the stand to deliver an ice-old mic drop.
We would’ve loved to hear a fuller set filled with the extended live versions of ‘Oxygen’, ‘Heathrow’ and ‘Glasgow’ too, especially given how many sections of pure instrumentation felt like they were going to transition into another track, but you can’t have everything, I guess.
Inflatable crocodiles and cracking flagsCredit: The Manc GroupEyes and arms wide openWe’re here to urge you not to be drawn in by TikTok reviews – as far as we’re concerned, Catfish were made to headline Heaton Park.
Sure, there might have been a few minor fluffed vocal notes and slightly over-lengthy solos here and there, but after all, it’s a rock show: we want a bit of mess.
The same goes for Van McCann himself, too; we worry that people are starting to forget what a proper rockstar is, and we’re not talking about contriving some kind of Hollywood lifestyle, but certainly getting lost in the music and trashing your guitar so hard that your face is draped in nothing but hair and sweat? Absolutely.
All in all, we think Catfish and the Bottlemen‘s massive outdoor show at Manchester’s Heaton Park and de facto ‘comeback after the last comeback’ was a triumph and even when they’re not absolutely 10/10, they’re still bloody good value live.
As for the question of ‘are they back?’ We think so and certainly hope that ‘Showtime’ wasn’t just released as a way of signalling fans to come along for one last ride before the final curtain call.
Daisy Jackson -
3rd October 2024 
