Ducie Street Warehouse could be transformed into a massive food hall, with new plans lodged.
The historic warehouse building near Manchester Piccadilly has worn a few hats over the years.
When it first opened, it was a home to Bistrotheque, a London export that bowed out from the beautiful Grade II-listed building after just six months.
Since then, it’s become a bustling all-day space where you can sit with a laptop for hours (and many do), snacking on a simple menu of flatbreads and salads as well as great cocktails.
But now it looks like Ducie Street Warehouse is in store for a major shake-up again, with plans now lodged to transform the space into huge food hall with more than 500 covers.
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The planning application comes from the same team behind Edinburgh Street Food up in Scotland, which is packed with street food traders serving a range of cuisines.
If the plans for Manchester Street Food go ahead, the warehouse on Ducie Street will become the home of a 10-kitchen food hall.
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It would flip most of the ground floor, including the terrace, while the upstairs continues operating as a hotel.
The plans also show that the existing private dining area will be turned into a casual games room, with the addition of pool tables, arcade machines and foosball tables.
Ducie Street Warehouse could be turned into a food hall. Credit: The Manc Group
Manchester Street Food will join a flurry of food halls across the city, with Mackie Mayor just a short walk away, along with the waterside venue Society, and the newly-opened House of Social.
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The plans also mention minor changes to the exterior of the building, illuminating an external lift shaft in a rainbow hue.
Their application states: “The ‘Street Food’ brand works with a range of vibrant and independent street food vendors to provide varied yet complementary choices, whilst showcasing local breweries and distilleries.
“Their operations focus on supporting local businesses and to diverse the food and beverage offer to create a welcoming and accessible food experiences.
“The ’Street Food’ brand was first established in the form of Edinburgh Street Food which opened in 2023, and which welcomes a broad demographic. It is recognised as a cultural and culinary hub whilst contributing positively to the local economy.
“Building on the success of Edinburgh Street Food, the Applicant is keen to expand further and enhance Manchester’s hospitality, gastronomy and evening economy.
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“As such, this full planning application has been prepared to enable the operation of Manchester Street Food from a prime city centre location at Ducie Street Warehouse.”
Do you think Manchester has the appetite for yet another street food hall?
A fancy new pizzeria has opened in Manchester serving posh pizzas and seasonal sharing plates
Clementine Hall
If you’ve ever wanted a pizza with smoked eel on, then you’re in luck.
Introducing Proloco, the brand spanking new restaurant from chef Richard Carver, founder of Honest Crust Sourdough Pizza, and Dan Hope, co-founder of Manchester club Rainy Heart.
Located in One Port Street over in Ancoats, this isn’t your bog standard pizzeria – this is lavish.
Here you’ll find a weekly rotating selection of 18-inch pizzas and sharing plates all made with the very best local produce imaginable.
Forget your bog standard pepperoni slice, on the menu here you’ll find a porchetta pizza with shishito peppers and Cornish kern, a charred greens pizza with sugar snap peas and anchovies, and our personal favourite – a smoked eel pie with lemon basil and pine nuts.
There’s also a tomato butter pie, which features slithers of butter in place of your usual mozzarella.
And if you just can’t decide, you can have your pizza as a half-and-half of flavours.
Sharing plates include tomatoes with lardo, roasted beetroot and a crispy egg with mortadella and fennel.
A half-and-half pizzaBeautiful interiors of ProlocoThe butter pie pizzaSmall plates, wine, and £7 negroniProloco opens on Great Ancoats Street in AugustScoops of homemade gelatoProloco’s open kitchenThe eel pizza at Proloco
A real selling point, though, is the £7 negroni alongside a selection of honest wine and carefully chosen beer from local suppliers as well as an aperitivo list.
The interior is simple, but beautiful – a colour palette of butter yellow, blue, and huge burgundy speakers to match the chairs that invite you to sit at long banquet-worthy tables or in front of the many windows.
Richard will be calling on his longstanding relationships with producers across the North West (and beyond) for his ingredients, from flour grown and milled in the Lake District, vegetables from Cinderwood Market Garden and Organic North, artisanal charcuterie and cheeses from Somerset, and the best tomatoes and oil from Italy.
He said: “Proloco is about cooking food I genuinely love with the best people and produce around me.
“I want it to feel effortless – warm, a little bit fun, and always worth coming back to.”
Proloco will officially open its doors on Great Ancoats Street on Wednesday 26 August.
Team behind award-winning cocktail bar Stray to open second Manchester bar
Daisy Jackson
The team behind Manchester’s award-winning cocktail bar Stray have announced a second bar is on the way.
Bar Dos will be an all-new neighbourhood bar, promising to be the ‘tearaway younger sibling’ of Stray.
You can expect everything from pints of Stella to refined cocktails, plus DJs all weekend long.
Set to open very soon, with a September launch pencilled into our diaries already, Bar Dos will be joining a couple of other big names in a new building on Great Ancoats Street.
They’ll count Proloco and Osma as neighbours once all three ventures are up and running this year.
Stray first opened at Mackie Mayor back in 2023, and shot into the UK’s Top 50 Cocktail Bars just over a year later.
Bar Dos will open in Manchester in SeptemberBar Dos is the second site for Stray
There, it occupies a beautiful corner unit with huge windows, and an outside terrace, perfect for sipping on their best-selling cocktails like their tomato vine margarita and their Fanta Limon (a boozy version of everyone’s favourite balcony tipple).
Now ready to launch a second site, the team will soon open Bar Dos, which will be a late-night, music-focused neighbourhood bar.
DJs already announced, along with renowned artists who have curated playlists, include Space Afrika, Chunky, Private Joy, Konnie Kon of Children of Zeus, and Stray residents Rhod Parry and Stu Richards.
Bar Dos will open on Great Ancoats Street this September.
Daisy Jackson -
16th September 2025 
