A steakhouse in Manchester has revealed plans to run a £15 deal during the rail and tube strikes in a bid to keep pulling people in.
Hawksmoor restaurant on Deansgate, which is widely considered to be one of the best steakhouses in the city, usually sells its 300g rump steak for £26 each with dripping fries priced at £5.75 on top.
However, during the ongoing strikes the restaurant has revealed it will be running a special deal where diners can enjoy the two together for £15.
Bosses have admitted the deal is so good, the restaurant won’t make any money – but say that it is more about keeping their restaurants (and hard-working teams) busy.
The new deal, dubbed ‘Move Your Rump’, will run from Thursday 20 to Monday 31 July and on every rail or tube strike day ‘for the foreseeable future’ between the hours of 12 and 6 pm.
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Revealing the new deal on Instagram, the business wrote: “A special rail strike announcement. It probably hasn’t escaped your notice that transport strikes aren’t great for restaurants, any more than they’re great for you. Sure, people have the right to strike and fight for more money, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t hard.
“Fortunately, Hawksmoor is doing OK, but this obviously impacts you and our teams. So, what to do about it? Well, we’ve decided to grab the cow by the horns and offer £15 steak & frites*, kicking off the offer from Thursday 20th until the end of July and then every rail/tube strike day for the foreseeable future.
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Image: Hawksmoor
Image: The Manc Eats
“A good reason to ‘move your rump’ and come have a good time with us. We won’t make any money out of it, but it should help to keep our restaurants – and our hard-working teams – busy, and hopefully gives you a reason to come into town and make a day of it.
“And, if you can’t come to Hawksmoor, consider nipping for lunch somewhere else. The hospitality industry has lost about £3bn since the strikes began and businesses are closing at an increasingly fast rate. A bit of fun for you, a welcome bit of business for them.
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*Available at our London, Manchester, Liverpool & Edinburgh Hawksmoor restaurants by booking on our website and quoting “Strike Steak” in the notes. Monday – Saturday, at lunchtime & early evenings, 12-6pm – opening hours vary slightly by restaurant, please check our website for details.”
One of Manchester’s grandest restaurants has finally reopened TWO YEARS after fire
Daisy Jackson
One of the most historic restaurants in Manchester has reopened at last, two years after a fire forced its closure.
Mount Street Dining Room & Bar – which many of us may remember as Mr Cooper’s – stands within the Grade II-listed Midland Hotel.
The grand dining room dates all the way back to 1903, when it opened with the hotel as the Grill Room.
The restaurant was at the epicentre of the Industrial Revolution and was frequented by railway travellers, perhaps best-known for hosting a lunch between Charles Rolls and Henry Royce in 1904, who went on to form the world-famous Rolls-Royce brand.
The Midland’s restaurants has gone through several changes in the decades since, undergoing a major £14 million refurb in 2020 to relaunch as Mount Street Dining Room & Bar.
Its interiors are inspired by the hotel’s early 1900s art deco and railway heritage, with a menu that focuses on locally-sourced British produce.
But the restaurant has been shut since early 2024, when a fire damaged the entrance and trellising around its main entrance on Mount Street.
The beautiful bar areaA glimpse of the menu at Mount StreetCocktails and British food
The Midland has finally managed to get the restaurant back open again this month, with a new food and cocktail menus, which aims to offer refined but simple British dining.
Expect dishes like pork and black pudding bonbons, white onion soup with crispy potatoes, smoked British salmon with lemon gel and dill mascarpone, and slow cooked beef daube with confit garlic mash.
Plus desserts such as rice pudding with Anise glazed pearsand Bakewell pudding with cherry syrup.
It’s been a long time since we’ve seen inside this beautiful, storied dining room – and it looks just as beautiful as we remember.
Georgina Pellant -
19th July 2023 
