Eats

Happy hour Manchester – the best drinks deals in the city centre

Cheers to big savings.

Daisy Jackson Daisy Jackson - 15th August 2023

Hands up if you’re always on the hunt for a happy hour Manchester – from drinks deals to cheap pints.

Oh yeah, that’s literally everyone.

Manchester is happy hour mad, with everything from discounted cocktails to BOGOF deals on frozen drinks to cheap bottles of wine.

Some of the best Manchester bars offer really decent after-work deals too, and there are even some offers that run at the weekends.

So we’ve gone ahead and rounded up the best Manchester happy hour deals around the city centre.

ADVERTISEMENT

And if you’re after more information on where to eat and drink around the city, visit our Manchester food and drink pages.

You can also see the latest events and things to do at our what’s on Manchester page, and all the late-night events you can get up to when happy hour’s over at our nightlife Manchester pages.

ADVERTISEMENT

Northern Quarter happy hours

Manchester Northern Quarter happy hours - Smithfield Social
Manchester Northern Quarter happy hours – Smithfield Social
Manchester Northern Quarter happy hours - Public
Manchester Northern Quarter happy hours – Public
Happy hour Manchester - Common
Happy hour Manchester – Common

The Northern Quarter has probably the highest concentrations of bars anywhere in Manchester city centre, and loads of them do amazing deals.

Here are some of the best we’ve found on our hunt for happy hours in Manchester.

Trof, Thomas Street

Monday to Friday, 4pm til 9pm

ADVERTISEMENT
  • £3.50 lager
  • £4 house spirit and mixer
  • £6 disco cocktails
  • £15 house wine
  • £21 bottle of fizz

Bay Horse Tavern, Thomas Street

Monday to Friday, 4pm til 8pm

  • £3.50 pints
  • £4 Guinness
  • Two for £12 cocktails
  • £5 Aperol Spritz
  • £5 doubles

Smithfield Social, Thomas Street

Monday to Friday, 4pm til 7pm

  • Two cocktails for £12
  • £4 pints of Guinness or Social pilsner
  • £20 bottles of prosecco for 
  • £15 bottles of house wine

Liquor and Burn, High Street

  • 2-for-1 margaritas every day

Common and Nell’s, Edge Street

Sunday to Thursday, 4pm til 7pm; all day Monday

  • £6 cocktails
  • £4 pints
  • £16 bottles of house wine

Friday and Saturday, 8pm til close

  • £6 cocktails
  • £2.50 shots

Turtle Bay, Oldham Street (and Oxford Road)

Sunday to Friday, 11am til 7pm and 9.30pm til close; Saturdays, 10am til 7pm and 9.30pm til close

ADVERTISEMENT
  • Two-for-one cocktails

The Lost Cat, Oldham Street

Every day, 5pm til 9pm

  • Buy one get one free on selected cocktails

Public, Stevenson Square

Whenever it rains, weekdays until 8pm

  • £6 daiquiris
  • £4 lager or wine

Flok, Stevenson Square

Every day

  • Two for £12 on spritzes

The Pen & Pencil, Hilton Street

Monday to Friday, 4pm til 7pm

  • Two for £12 cocktails
  • £4.50 Amstel
  • £18 bottles of prosecco
  • £15 bottles of house wine

Ancoats happy hours

Manchester Ancoats happy hours - Nam
Manchester Ancoats happy hours – Nam
Manchester Ancoats happy hours - Jane Eyre
Manchester Ancoats happy hours – Jane Eyre

Looking for happy hour Manchester? Ancoats has more than a few tricks up its sleeve for you.

ADVERTISEMENT

Ever since the redevelopment of Ancoats began, turning former warehouses into fancy apartments, the neighbourhood has attracted some brilliant restaurants and bars.

Here are the best Manchester happy hour deals in this blossoming neighbourhood of Ancoats.

The Jane Eyre, Cutting Room Square

Tuesday to Thursday, 3pm til 6pm

  • £7 cocktails

Nam, Cutting Room Square

Monday to Thursday, 4pm til 8pm

  • 2 for £12 on all cocktails

Firehouse, Swan Street

Wednesday to Friday, 4pm til 7pm

ADVERTISEMENT
  • 50% off wine

The New Cross, Cross Keys Street

Thursday and Friday, 4pm til 7pm

  • Two glasses of prosecco £10
  • £4.50 pints
  • Any kebab and a pint £10

Seven Brothers, Cutting Room Square

Sunday to Thursday, 4pm til 7pm

  • £4 pints
  • Discounted wine and spirits (ask at the bar for deals)

Cocoa Cabana, Murray Street

Monday to Friday, 3pm til 5pm

  • Two-for-one cocktails

Central Manchester happy hours

Manchester happy hours - 10 Tib Lane
Manchester happy hours – 10 Tib Lane
Manchester happy hours - Haunt
Manchester happy hours – Haunt

10 Tib Lane, Tib Lane

Tuesday to Sunday, 4pm til 6pm

  • £6 cocktails

Bunny Jackson’s, First Street

Every day, 10pm til 11pm

ADVERTISEMENT
  • £3 house pilsner
  • £5 slushies
  • £17 bottles of prosecco

Corbieres, Half Moon Street

Tuesday to Friday, from 4pm

  • Free pizza when you buy a drink

Haunt, Peter Street

Every day, 4pm til 8pm

  • £5 spritzes
  • £4 lager
  • £16 bottles of wine
  • £20 bottles of prosecco

YES, Charles Street

Every day, 12pm til 6pm; Sundays and Mondays, all day

  • Two for £10 on cocktails

53Two, Watson Street

Deals on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays

  • Monday – 10% off all drinks and food between 5pm and 9pm
  • Wednesday – buy two large glasses of wine and get the rest of the bottle free
  • Friday – £19 bottles of prosecco all day

Spinningfields and Deansgate happy hours

Manchester happy hours - Manahatta
Manchester happy hours – Manahatta
Manchester happy hours - Albert's Schloss
Manchester happy hours – Albert’s Schloss
Manchester happy hours - Blue's Kitchen
Manchester happy hours – Blues Kitchen

The corner of the city centre that incorporates Spinningfields and Deansgate is among the busiest in town, with cocktails bars all over the place.

ADVERTISEMENT

And while they may be fancy, here are the places that do the best happy hour Manchester.

Banyan, Vantage Point

Sunday to Friday, all day; Saturdays from 5pm

  • Two-for-one cocktails

Crazy Pedro’s, Bridge Street (also Northern Quarter)

Sunday to Friday, 5pm til 9pm

  • Two for £12 cocktails
  • ‘Cheap plonk’
  • £2.50 slices and £12 pizzas

Blues Kitchen, Quay Street

Every Wednesday, all day and night

  • £6 cocktails

Albert’s Schloss, Peter Street

Monday to Friday, 4pm til 7pm

ADVERTISEMENT
  • £25 bottles of prosecco
  • £5 pints of Pilsner
  • £6 selected cocktails including spritzes

Manahatta, Deansgate

Sunday to Friday, all day

  • Two-for-one cocktails

BOX, Deansgate

Sunday to Wednesday, all day

  • Two-for-one cocktails

Pong & Puck, Great Northern

Sunday to Thursday, 5pm til 7pm

  • £4 pints of beer
  • Two for £12 on cocktails
  • £20 bottles of proescco

Dirty Martini, Peter Street

Monday to Friday until 9pm; Saturdays until 7pm; Sundays all day

  • Half price cocktails including martinis
  • £25 bottles of prosecco
  • £15 bottles of wine
  • £3.50 bottled beers

Read more

Featured image: The Manc Group

Eats

Inside the underground Manchester noodle bar serving Chinatown’s spiciest scrans

Georgina Pellant Georgina Pellant noodle alley

Over in Chinatown, there’s a relatively new little noodle bar that’s been making a big, spicy stamp on the city’s dining scene.

Its owner, Wendy Ren, hails from the Chinese province of Sichuan – a region that’s home to giant pandas, traditional Sichuanese opera, and some of the spiciest food going, thanks to its famous Sichuan pepper.

Also known as the Chinese prickly ash, the citrus-like peppercorn leaves a tingly numbness in the mouth and on the lips that you’ll either love or hate.

It’s an acquired taste, by all accounts – but those who love it can’t get enough. In fact, on my visit during a packed-out Wednesday lunch service, Wendy stopped to chat with an Italian family holidaying in Manchester who had been in to eat three days in a row. Now that’s an endorsement if I ever heard one.

She’s opened the restaurant alongside her Cantonese husband, Ken Chen, but the recipes are all hers – and on our visit she laughs with us about how it has taken him some time to get on board with her spicy food, saying: “he found out pretty quickly that he either eats it or he doesn’t eat at all.”

For big fans of spice, this is fast becoming the absolute go-to spot in Chinatown – and for those who aren’t so tough, don’t worry, because Wendy’s put some things on the menu for you too (and possibly, also, for Ken).

Just taking a moment for the hand-rolled pork dumplings with sweet and spicy chilli oil and minced garlic. / Image: The Manc Eats
Noodle Alley is beautifully decked out in red and green with little nods to the famous wide and narrow alleys of Chengdu. / Image: The Manc Eats

Called Noodle Alley, the restaurant is tucked away underground on Faulkner Street and beautifully decked out in red and green with little nods to the famous wide and narrow alleys of Chengdu.

Formerly home to China City, a real old-school Chinatown legacy restaurant, the space has a special place in Wendy’s heart.

She tells me that she and her husband used to come and eat here “all the time” when they first started dating, so the location really means a lot to both of them.

Chinatown restaurants aren’t exactly known for their glamorous interiors, and China City, Wendy jokes, was one such place – with the same old carpet, and the same old tables that had been used for the past twenty years.

Now the space is her own, though, it’s markedly different – lovingly decked out in cheerful colours, with little green windows, hanging lanterns, and bamboo rattan paneling on the walls.

Hand-rolled dumplings stuffed with mince pork on their way to the kitchen at Noodle Alley. / Image: The Manc Eats
The end result – drenched in homemade chilli oil and topped with crispy garlic. / Image: The Manc Eats

Her story of getting into the restaurant business is something of an unusual one. Prior to opening Noodle Alley, she tells me, she spent nearly two decades working at The Marriott Hotel.

After seventeen years of service and the birth of her second child, she asked to go part-time but her request was refused – so she quit the very next day, and began building her own route to independence.

It was during the Covid lockdown, she says, that she really got into cooking group meals – making meals for her friends and spending hours in the kitchen busying away happily over her stove.

A friend with several restaurants in Chinatown suggested she start her own business, and the rest – as they say – is history.

Dan Dan noodles are out, apparently, and Su Jiao Mian are in. / Image: The Manc Eats
Burning noodles with preserved vegetables and crushed peanuts. / Image: The Manc Eats

Dish-wise, her menu spans a mouthwatering selection of dry noodles, soup noodles, street food, and small plates, including the likes of deep-fried wavy potato chips with chilli and Szechuan pepper and steamed beef strips wrapped with chilli paste, numbing Sichuan pepper, and five-spiced rice powder.

Dan Dan noodles, the Sichuan dish we probably all know the best, don’t feature – they’re a bit old news now, apparently, and Wendy has some cooler alternatives for us to try.

Read more: This blink-and-you’ll-miss-it basement restaurant in Manchester’s Chinatown serves the ultimate yum cha feast

One is her Su Jiao Mian, a mixture of minced pork, sesame sauce, and house chilli oil, the other is the Wan Za Mian, a fiery mixture of spices combined with minced pork, soft yellow peas, and more chilli which Wendy says is “one of the most popular noodles in Sichuan.”

Apparently, if you’re eating with the cool kids in Sichuan, you should order this. Not one to argue, I dig in – and it’s safe to say her food is pretty damn exceptional. Almost immediately, I’m planning my next trip back.

Two of Noodle Alley’s signature dishes: Steamed beef strips wrapped with five spiced rice powder (back) and ‘saliva chicken’ served cold with special chilli oil, peanuts, and cucumber. / Image: The Manc Eats
Pork knuckle with butter beans in an umami-rich pork bone broth. / Image: The Manc Eats

Other signature dishes here include Wendy’s steamed beef strips, which can be eaten alone or dipped into one of her noodle soups, and a dish of ‘saliva chicken’ – a crunchy, cold, textural dish with steamed chicken, fresh chillis and ribbons of cucumber that sit swimming in a bath of homemade Sichuan chilli oil, so named because it literally makes your mouth water.

We also opt for a dish of pork knuckle with butter beans in an umami-rich pork bone broth. Not one for the faint-hearted, even Wendy seemed a little cautious to recommend this one, but as fans of ‘the weird stuff’ we insist – and it really ends up being a highlight of the meal.

Read more: Top Manchester chef to host special £250 dinner – but vegans aren’t welcome

We end up needing a little help with it. It’s a slippery bugger and I end up wearing a fair bit of the broth. before she returns with a knife and fork to cut it up properly for us.

That broth it’s in, though, is so beautiful I could happily bathe in it. Some might say I did, to be fair. As for the soft, succulent pork meat? When sliced into tiny morsels and dipped into an extra special Sichuan chilli oil she retrieves from the kitchen, is something else entirely.

If this is Sichuan heaven, then I’ll happily stay here forever. From plump hand-made dumplings stuffed generously with flavourful pork and drenched in chilli oil, to chicken giblet soup noodles, there’s so much on the menu I will be coming back for.

And for those who really can’t handle the spice, I guess I’ll be recommending the scallion oil noodles with soy sauce and crispy egg. No matter what you order here, I don’t think you can go too wrong.

Featured image – The Manc Eats

Eats

Manchester Coffee Festival returns to celebrate all things caffeine

Daisy Jackson Daisy Jackson The Extracted Development competition at Manchester Coffee Festival

The Manchester Coffee Festival, presented by Cup North, will make its grand return to the city later this autumn. 

The renowned event celebrates all things caffeine and is a must-visit for anyone in the industry, or just anyone who’s a coffee fanatic. 

You can connect with other coffee lovers from around the UK while doing your favourite thing – drinking loads of coffee. 

Visitors can work their way around the vast event at the Bowlers Exhibition Centre, where there’ll be everything from a Markets Marketplace for shopping, a tasting room where you can sample loads of different coffees, workshops to have a go at, and talks and panels with industry experts. 

As well as that, Manchester Coffee Festival will have live music featuring incredible local artists, and a fun and entertaining LGBTQ+ friendly family program in collaboration with Drag Queen Story Hour UK and The Proud Trust. 

Cup North will be hosting the coffee competition, Extracted Development, over the two days of the event. Baristas and roasters from across the UK will be bringing the real life behind-the-bar scene on stage. 

Unlike the usual competitions, attendees will be encouraged to interact with the competitors and get to taste their delicious competition coffee at a brew bar setting.

There’ll be more than 60 exhibitors joining Manchester Coffee Festival 2023, each bringing their unique coffee products, artisanal treats, and coffee-related products. 

Traders at Manchester Coffee Festival
Traders at Manchester Coffee Festival
Manchester Coffee Festival 2022
Manchester Coffee Festival 2022
The tasting room at Manchester Coffee Festival
The tasting room at Manchester Coffee Festival

And coffee fiends will find plenty of familiar names about, such as Oatly, La Marzocco, Stores, KeepCup, WaterCare and Brew-It Group.

This year, the festival will be going paper cup-free – attendees are encouraged ‘sip responsibly’ and to bring their own reusable cups. 

KeepCup will be on hand with free cups you can borrow for the day too. 

This year, the Manchester Coffee Festival will be partnering with Farmers’ Voice Radio as part of its Community Partner Program, which aims to support different charity organisations who share their ambition to make a positive contribution towards specialty coffee communities and the communities local to their events. 

Farmers’ Voice Radio has a mission to transform the lives of millions of farmers and rural communities through the power of radio. 

It is also working with The Proud Trust to build a more diverse and inclusive event for the local community. 

6% of all ticket sales will be evenly donated to both organisations, who will be on site to chat to attendees too. 

Festival co-founder Hannah Davies said: “The Manchester Coffee Festival is all about celebrating the vibrant world of specialty coffee and creating a welcoming community, not just for the industry but for all. 

“We’re thrilled to be back, bigger and better than ever, with a program that showcases the very best of coffee, sustainability, and accessibility.”

Manchester Coffee Festival will return to Bowlers Exhibition Centre between 18 and 19 November. Tickets are now available to purchase online at manchestercoffeefest.com/tickets.

Featured image: Supplied

More Eats

adam reid at the french

City Centre

Top Manchester chef to host special £250 dinner – but vegans aren’t welcome

Eats

Hunting for Manchester’s best kebab with buses and a BIG lunch

Brunch spread at Diggle Lock in Saddleworth

Eats

Diggle Lock – the canal-side Saddleworth cafe serving a world-class brunch

Audio

Clint Boon takes us around Manchester's iconic Deaf Institute

Eats

We go meatballs deep with Mira's traditional Neapolitan sandwiches