The Mean Eyed Cat, a Deep South-inspired dive bar with free pizza, is ready to open its doors in Manchester city centre.
The bar is already a familiar face on the bar scene, pulling out all the party vibes for almost two decades.
It’s now slinking its way onto Oldham Street, with a late-night sister bar, Tiki Hideaway, tucked down in the basement.
The Mean Eyed Cat has taken what was the futuristic, Blade Runner-esque dining room of District and flipped it into an American dream, with neon signs, weathered wooden walls, and rows of beers and bourbons behind the bar.
District’s old basement cocktail bar is now dripping in straw ceilings and bamboo walls as it turns fully into a Hawaiian-themed rum shack famed for its flaming Zombies.
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The Mean Eyed Cat comes with plenty of unusual details – where else in town could you roll a dice and let fate decide how much your round at the bar will cost (FYI, it’s 25% off if you roll a two or a four, and it’s free if you roll a six).
Every drink you purchase at The Mean Eyed Cat in Manchester between 5pm and 9pm comes with a free pizza. Credit: The Manc GroupYou can roll a dice at the bar at The Mean Eyed Cat in Manchester to save money on your round. Credit: The Manc Group
Every drink you purchase between 5pm and 9pm comes with a free pizza. The catch, you ask? Nope, there isn’t one.
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Pizza toppings include cheeseburger, chipotle fajita and buffalo cauliflower, with the West Yorkshire branch getting through hundreds every day.
There are several Johnny Cash-themed drinks on the Mean Eyed Cat menu, including I Walk The Lime (a Key Lime Pie-inspired creamy classic with Absolut lime vodka, apple juice, sugar syrup, cream, lime curd and a sprinkling of lime zest) and Ting of Fire (a zesty, fruity, vodka number with watermelon liqueur and Ting grapefruit juice).
Grant Dexter, Managing Director at Escapism Bars, said: “With many hospitality firms and venues feeling the pinch due to the energy crisis and cost of living, it’s exciting to be able to open these awesome venue, which includes not one but two incredible bars, in this popular area in Manchester which spans the NQ and Ancoats.
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“We opened The Mean-Eyed Cat in Leeds back in 2004 and it has stood the test of time, attracting students, after work drinkers, party goers and anyone that likes to let their hair down. We can’t wait to see what Manchester’s legendary revellers make of the venues!”
New Manchester restaurant receives rave review as another is slammed as ‘torture’
Daisy Jackson
Pip, a new restaurant in Manchester, has received a rave national review this week – a review which slammed another restaurant in the same feature.
Food critic William Sitwell wrote in his review in The Telegraph that Pip is charming, refined, and fabulous.
“Bravo, Pip. Pip pip!” he wrote in the glowing write-up on the new restaurant, which stands at the foot of the new Treehouse Hotel and has the acclaimed Mary-Ellen McTague at its helm.
Sitwell’s Telegraph review particularly raved about dishes including Lancashire hot pot (‘fabulously good’), a wild garlic soup (‘a gorgeous thing’), and an apple trifle (‘a gift from heaven’).
But while it was all good for Pip, there were significantly less positive adjectives heaped on another restaurant in Manchester.
In fact, he said that Pip is ‘a great-value tonic’ for the ‘brash (and pricey) torture’ across town.
That restaurant was KAJI, formerly known as MUSU, which he said was ‘all tummies, bald heads, tattoos and heat’.
Sitwell said that while the service and sashimi are good at KAJI, the ‘place is afflicted by some overbearing cooking that cheapens the noble name of Japanese cuisine’.
He wrote: “Lamb chops fail the tender test and are properly wrecked sitting on a vulgar pond of sticky “tomato ponzu”. No beast should die to have that stuff squirted anywhere near it.
“And Kaji is a Japanese gaff without sake. Which is like opening a British pub in Tokyo and forgetting to put an ale on tap.”
Sharing the review, Pip wrote: “Thankyou @telegraph and @williamsitwell for the fantastic feature. We’re so proud of our team here.”
Milk Maids, Bolton – The family-run ice cream parlour on an award-winning farm
Daisy Jackson
Ice cream doesn’t come much fresher than those served at Milk Maids – in fact, you’ll be standing right on the family farm where the cows that produce the milk live, as you tuck into your scoop.
This unassuming dairy farm in Bolton has been in operation for decades, and in the same family for generations.
But it’s when sisters Fiona and Rebecca saw the full potential of all that award-winning milk being produced on their farm that Milk Maids was born.
This ice cream parlour on Dearden’s Farm in Over Hulton is now one of the hottest spots in Greater Manchester, especially when the weather is similarly hot.
Every month they release a whole batch of flavours, all made fresh daily (you can literally see Fiona legging it across the yard with buckets of milk to make fresh batches), with May specials including white chocolate and sea salt caramel, raspberry cookie, and passionfruit pavlova.
Milk Maids, Bolton – The family-run ice cream parlour on an award-winning farm
Cones can be filled with molten chocolate or pistachio creme before your ice cream is scooped and pressed into the cone.
Or you can have your chosen flavour whizzed up into a milkshake, served in a milk bun, or presented in an insulated take-home box for later.
We could wax lyrical about how good this ice cream is, but the queues really do speak for themselves, and you should go and get in it right now.
Daisy Jackson -
27th September 2023 
