Across the world, one app has been uniting strangers in 235 cities, matching six lucky diners for an evening meal at a surprise restaurant table and now Manchester is the latest city to open its taste buds to this pseudo-Come Dine With Me concept. Only this one involves less cooking.
Guests are expected to partake in an evening of food, booze and plenty of interesting conversations between six total strangers, only with hopefully less drama than the hit Channel 4 show. Strictly no Jane’s spoiling anything…
The concept is being pushed by French entrepreneur Maxime Barbier and his company ‘TimeLeft’. He has a lengthy career in the nightlife industry behind him and now wants to further strengthen good food and good times via this app.
And it’s clearly working: according to the company’s official website, 96% of dining groups consider themselves compatible meaning their carefully selected pairings are pretty accurate.
All curious diners have to do is download Timeleft and take a personality test before they’re whisked away for a night of entertainment and lush catering picked out by the pioneering new app.
Fear not, there will be a ‘Break the ice’ game where you can get to know the like-minded and compatible strangers you’re spending the rest of the evening with.
Once the table fills up and the evening is well away, everyone round the table will receive a notification to continue the night at a nearby bar chosen once again by this new dining concept app.
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This new mealtime experience is a really good way of making connections, especially for newcomers to the city who are looking to expand their friendship group and navigate Manchester with some similar fresh-faced companions. There’s crucially much less cooking involved too, by which we mean none.
Throughout their website, the company shares a range of blogs breaking down everything from ‘6 tips for smoothing over a heated conversation’ to ‘the ultimate guide to Timeleft’.
In a standout piece entitled, ‘The 10 types of strangers at your table‘, they discuss the different types of personalities that you may come across during your meal.
From the simpler and recognisable labels like the introvert and extrovert to the more complex like the contemplative and the humourist, these little excerpts are handy to anyone who may have any nerves ahead of the meeting.
So, anyone located in Greater Manchester who might be interested in this new dining concept can participate by downloading the TimeLeft app and seeing where the night takes them.
You might not go home with £1,000 in cash but you’ll certainly create some memories and come pretty close to living out your Come Dine With Me fantasy – there really is an app for everything.
The restaurant and bar closures that shocked Manchester in 2024
Danny Jones
A sad reality of the world of hospitality is that while we often have loads of fabulous new openings to celebrate, there is also a steady stream of restaurant and bar closures in Manchester.
It’s been another year of blistering food and drink highs and devastating lows, saying goodbye to several very high-profile businesses as 2024 ticked along.
Closures included enormous celeb-studded venues, much-loved independent restaurants and bakeries, the likes of the long-standing Church Street Markets and some of the finest dining establishments in all of Greater Manchester.
We haven’t included them all on this list (a notable absence is Sakkusamba, which shut down to rebrand as Raft, then Raft shut back down to rebrand as Sakkusamba again – you can read all about that weird situation HERE), because that would just be a little depressing.
But below you’ll find a list of the restaurant and bar closures that shocked Manchester city centre and beyond in 2024.
13 Greater Manchester restaurants and bars that closed in 2024
Greens – Didsbury and Sale
2024 was only two days old when celebrity chef Simon Rimmer announced the closure of his vegetarian restaurant, Greens, in Didsbury.
It had been part of the suburb’s restaurant scene for more than 30 years but was ultimately felled by rising costs, including a rent increase of a whopping 35%.
Rimmer kept the sister site over in Sale up and running, but not for long – that also closed in September.
His restaurant portfolio includes Rudy’s and Albert’s Schloss, but the loss of Greens was a real blow to Greater Manchester.
Cottonopolis, then Lamb of Tartary – Northern Quarter
The site reopened under the same team as Lamb of Tartary, a beautiful pub and restaurant inspired by the success of its sister site, the very successful Edinburgh Castle over in Ancoats.
Sadly, Lamb of Tartary wasn’t long for this world either, and that quietly shut down in September after only six months.
Who will try and take on this landmark unit next, we wonder?
Trove – Ancoats and Levenshulme
Credit: The Manc Group
One of Manchester’s original independent bakeries shut down in the summer of 2024 after a turbulent few months.
Trove had started life in Levenshulme where it was quickly hailed as one of the region’s best neighbourhood food spots, then it branched out to Ancoats with a cafe too.
But both shut down in dramatic fashion in June, with the modern Ancoats site repossessed by landlords.
They finally broke their silence on the closures a few days later with an emotional statement that said: “We have been struggling mentally, physically and financially for a while.”
Formerly known as Luck, Lust, Liquor and Burn, the popular Northern Quarter bar and restaurant is sadly just the former in general now after closing back in August 2024.
The Mexican food spot and late-night watering hole was known not only for delicious and pretty affordable scran with Californian influences but also for one of the best happy hours in town.
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It may have started out as a spin-off courtesy of, Almost Famous, but it truly grew to take on a life, reputation and style of its own for just over a decade.
Sadly, it wasn’t to last forever and while they didn’t provide much detail as to what caused the closure, we can assume they were facing the same challenges most local businesses have been in recent years. They bowed with one final happy, messy and very emotional hour – thanks for the memories.
Speaking of Almost Famous, the dirty burger masters still have a wonderful empire here in Greater Manchester and, indeed across the North but one spot did sadly have to admit defeat.
Their Withington outpost started off so good and looked to be not only one of their most handy locations for students and those on the outskirts of the city, but the room itself had undoubtedly the unique aesthetic they’d stumbled across to date.
As pretty as the room and as reliable as the food always is, opening during a cost-of-living crisis was never going to be easy and they came out to thank their loyal customers on multiple occasions for helping to keep going.
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Sadly, they couldn’t feasibly keep going and though AF remains 0161’s most iconic burger joint, the Withy experiment didn’t work out – fingers crossed they get another go at it again in the future.
Rigatoni’s (formerly SUD and Sugo before that) – Ancoats, Sale and city centre
Another closure saga was the unfortunate story of Rigatoni’s, once considered one of the best Italian restaurants in all of the boroughs during its days as Sugo Pasta Kitchen before having to change its name to SUD following a rather confusing lawsuit threat.
As if all that wasn’t enough, the pasta specialists then suffered four closures across Greater Manchester and ended up undergoing another rebrand to relaunch as Rigatoni’s in December of 2023.
However, it seems whatever name they went by, they just couldn’t make it work and sadly Rigatoni’s went on to shut its restaurants in Ancoats, Sale AND in Exhibition food hall, leaving only Altrincham behind.
You can backtrack through the full sequence of events HERE and see what it’s now become down below:
Another one that hit us hard over the past 12 months was the news of Manchester city centre’s beloved Pie and Ale closing its doors after a little over a decade.
The NQ cult favourite was known for its legendary pie and pint for a tenner deal, years of unique takes on pastry-encased flavour combinations, a great booze selection across the board and being of the best-kept secrets when it came to finding a quieter pub to watch live sport.
It was quite comfortable one of the best places to grab a pie in Manchester and a relatively cheap day/night out in general and its closure back in April was a tough one for lots of locals to take.
If you ever visited, you’ll know how cool a spot it was.
Stretford Food Hall – Chester Rd
Heading over towards Trafford direction, the Food Hall that was attached to Stretford Mall was another frustrating closure at the start of last year, especially given the somewhat recent refurb a few years prior.
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On the outside, things may have looked like they were on the up to many but, truth be told, the space had been struggling ever since the pandemic. Businessman Mital Morar opened the Food Hall back in 2019 but by February 2024, he confessed it had “no more left in the tank”.
At the heart of the regenerated Stretford Strip that looked to be thriving at the start of 2020, it housed plenty of popular local vendors including What’s Your Beef?, Egg & Co., Cloudwater Brewery and more.
The Food Hall might be kaput but you can still enjoy Stretford Canteen at least. (Credit: The Manc Group)
PLY – Northern Quarter
From one that had the potential to build a local renaissance around to a city centre institution that students are still mourning to this day, PLY closing marked what felt like the end of an era.
Once the toast of Lever Street just off the corner of Stevenson Square, PLY could always guarantee you three things: cheap and tasty pizza, reasonably priced drinks and a good time.
That being said, it didn’t take long for it to reopen as something new and fairly different – you can read all about it below – and you can still enjoy the fantastic flavours from their stand in New Century Hall.
Manchester, pay attention: The Salmon of Knowledge has some wisdom to bestow upon you — mainly how to pour a proper Guinness and have a grand auld time. 🇮🇪☘️
Sonata, a jazz and piano bar in Manchester, has announced its closure. Credit: The Manc Group
Another hidden gem that quietly closed its doors last year was the late-night piano and cabaret hideaway known as Sonata.
It may never have been the most bustling bar or well-known live entertainment venue in Manchester, but for the die-hards that made it home on so many weekends and what would otherwise have been boring an evening after work, it was a real wound to see it close its doors after a couple of years.
With an entrance off St Ann’s Alley that was marked with a glowing sign and a lightbulb, it felt like a real local secret, and despite building up a loyal following through its New York-style live music nights, Sonata shut down citing ‘near-impossible challenges in the current climate’. See more HERE.
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WOOD – First/Jack Rosenthal Street
Celebrity chef and former MasterChef champion Simon Wood shocked Manchester when he announced the closure of his flagship restaurant, WOOD.
Wood has remained one of Greater Manchester’s most-renowned chefs for the past decade, not to mention a huge advocate for supporting the hospitality industry, especially post-Covid and during the ongoing cost of living crisis.
Sharing an emotional post on Instagram, he wrote: “Sadly with COVID rent arrears now being demanded by our landlord and an increasingly difficult marketplace, energy increases, ingredient costs and soon-to-be spiralling business rates we just cannot make this work.”
Local gem and one of Greater Manchester’s very best food spots, The Thirsty Korean, closed its Chorlton restaurant after five years when its lease came to an end.
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It had hit headlines only months before its closure when Sacha Lord chose to publicly celebrate a series of local business, paying everyone’s bill there for one night only (with suitably long queues…)
Confirming the closure of the Manchester Road spot via Instagram, owner Eunji Noh wrote: “I love you, loved you lots and will love you. Hope to see you soon and let’s celebrate our beautiful and cheerful end of The Thirsty Korean!
“Please stay with us and don’t forget about us. Find me and I will be here with big arms opened to hug you all.”
Black Dog Ballroom – Northern Quarter
Long-standing Northern Quarter bar Black Dog Ballroom sadly and quietly closed for business back in January 2024, after a decade and a half as one of Manchester’s favourite nightlife hotspots.
The rumblings of the Black Dog’s closure slipped somewhat under the radar but were all but confirmed when the city centre bar and pool hall’s website updated to simply read: ‘Black Dog Ballroom is now closed’.
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The site has now become Definitely Maybe, an Oasis-themed bar that even has drinks inspired by the Gallagher brothers.
Five of the best alcohol-free bars in Manchester you can enjoy this Dry January
Danny Jones
Listen, quite of a few us here at The Manc are giving Dry January a go again this year and if there’s one thing we’ve learned it’s that it isn’t always the alcohol that we miss but more the feeling of sitting around a bar with your mates, drink in hand and talking rubbish, not a care in the world.
These days, alcohol-free stuff is getting pretty good and if you’re having a good enough time chatting away with you and yours, be it your partner, a loved one, your bestie or otherwise, you’ll be surprised how quickly you forget there’s you’re gulping down a zero or low-alcohol alternative.
Whether it’s a wheaty bottle of Erdinger, a cold pint of Lucky Saint, a fruity mocktail or even a crisp 0% gin and tonic, they all quench your thirst just as good as the real thing, only without any damage to your health and without the hangover the next morning.
We’re not going to pretend we don’t love a few beers at the weekend or a vino after a long day, but Dry Jan is a positive challenge we can all get behind and it doesn’t have to mean staying in or saying bye to the pub — so here’s five Manchester bars that do alcohol-free or low percentage booze really well.
Five zero-percent and alcohol-free friendly bars in Manchester
1. Hinterland – Northern Quarter
Opening up back in June 2024, Hinterland is currently Manchester’s only permanent and purpose-built alcohol-free bar and cafe, and while the place might be booze they’ve certainly added a real cosiness and creativity to the space. Oh yeah, it also happens tp be tucked away under the Buddhist Centre.
Roomy and with no reservations needed, dog-friendly, not to mention serving fresh cakes, bakes and a fully-fledged food menu from vegan heroes, Wholesome Junkies – who are now the main vendors of the basement bar – this place has grown pretty quickly.
It’s also become a vital community corner for those trying to come off drink, already in recovery or even just the sober-curious, as they host numerous events throughout the year to help people learn more about zero-alcohol living as well as socialise and meet new people on similar journeys. A wonderful spot.
Hinterland is currently one of the only true alcohol-free bars in Manchester (Credit: The Manc Group)
2. Feel Good Club – Northern Quarter
Next up is a place that’s been at the forefront of wellbeing culture in the region since it first opened in 2020, came back fighting after an unfortunate break-in and has been serving up Mancs, healthy food, non-alcoholic bevs that will knock your socks off and nothing but good vibes ever since.
Located just on the corner of Hilton Street in the NQ, where it’s fair to say you’ll find some of Manchester’s very best pubs and bars, the regular crowds and easily enticed newcomers Feel Good Club pulls in will never make you feel like you’re missing out or should have wandered in elsewhere.
You can come in here for a tipple if you want but, honestly, there’s nothing like enjoying something off their all-day lunch and brunch menu followed by a ‘sober dolly’, ‘sober elton’ or one of their regularly rotating zero-alcohol cans of IPA. They even published their debut book, A guide to feeling good and being okay with it when you’re not in 2022 and do their own merch. Look good feel good and all that.
Feel Good Club has all the best bits of a bar, cafe and hangout spot only you can do it all alcohol-free. (Credit: Feel Good Club/Instagram)
3. New Century – Victoria
In at number three is one of the city centre‘s best new food vendor halls, bars and entertainment venues, which just so happens to be doing a very good deal to kick off the year too, which they’ve appropriately dubbed ‘Dry Scranuary’.
We’re talking about New Century over in the heart of the regenerated NOMA district and not only is the ground floor of this big open-plan venue the perfect place for you and a bunch of mates to pile into and have a bite, but they’re also giving you an extra incentive to do so whilst staying off the sauce.
Throughout all of January, you can get a free non-alcoholic beverage with any main all-day from Wednesday to Sunday and, hey, you can always head upstairs for a gig afterwards as well. Sold.
Now, if you fancy sipping and savouring something fancy whilst still feeling like you’re treating yourself to something a bit posh and special as somewhat of a reward for another day of Dry Jan down, why not do it at a bar that’s been named best in the UK two years running and one of the best in the world?
Schofield’s is the kind of place where you’re not going in to get drunk in the first place: you’re there to take in the atmosphere and aesthetic, appreciate the immaculate service and admire the expertly made drinks. Lucky for you, they have an entire menu packed with non-alcoholic concoctions.
Stylised as their ‘Temperance’ selection, you can enjoy everything from a colourful Club Tropicana to a classic Virgin Mary or even a ‘Frosty Toddy’: honey, ginger, lemon and soda. Sweet, simple and sublime. If there’s anyone who can make a drink that doesn’t need any alcohol in it, it’s these wizards.
The fifth and final entry on our whistle-stop tour of Manchester bars that are great at low percentage and alcohol-free libations is the one and only Zouk Tea Bar and Grill over on Chester Street.
Serving up some of the best Indian and Pakistani food you’ll find in any of the 10 boroughs, not to mention a firm favourite amongst almost everyone in the office, this popular restaurant situated just off the Oxford Road Corridor doesn’t just serve up banging food but some of the best mocktails you’ll find.
With five different types of mojito – including their much-loved ‘special’ – cosmos, daiquiris, pina coladas and our personal preference, the ‘Summer of 69’ (mango and pineapple juice with passion fruit, lime and a shot of grenadine), there’s something for everyone. The perfect kind of refreshment to pair with mounds of bottomless Zouk curry or brunch. Might as well whilst you’re there.
Not strictly a bar but Zouk are just as skilled at alcohol-free as they are their cuisine. (Credit: The Manc Group)
As always with these lists, this is just a taste of the low and alcohol-free options Manchester has to offer these days as Britain continues to reassess its bar and binge culture.
For starters, places like the Printworks have such a healthy selection of mocktails, low and no-alcohol drinks at the likes of O’Neills, Bierkeller, Hard Rock Cafe, Boom Battle Bar and more that you’d never had to walk for more than a few yards between tipples. They’re even offering £20 off through their app.
Other honourable mentions have to go to the likes of the award-winning brains behind Blinker Bar, the stylish but unpretentious cocktails specialists at Stray, the charming Parisian-inspired drinks at The Daisy, the marvellous mocktail menu at Etçi Mehmet and so many others.
But a month goes by in a flash and we didn’t want to ram a load of bars down your throat, so this handful should do you just fine. Instead of making Dry January feel like a slog or a chore, let’s keep that lovely feeling of having a social drink going and remember it’s about who’s cheersing the glass, not what’s in it.
Lastly, we couldn’t talk about alcohol-free bars without touching on the pop-up that arguably started it all: LoveFrom, which sadly announced its closure back in July 2024.
But fear not, founder Karl Considine says the one-time Kampus resident has insisted they will be back in the near future and we can only thank people like Karl for getting the ball rolling when it comes to the alcohol-free bar scene here in Manchester city centre.
If you’re looking to make the most of your visits to bars and restaurants around Greater Manchester in January, you can find all the best deals down below.
Best of luck for the rest of Dry Jan and whether you’re counting down the days to that first drop or turning over a new leaf, we know you can do it.
Thomas Melia -
5th December 2024 
