When it comes to a lunch break in Manchester we really are spoilt for choice – but there’s a reason so many of us make the pilgrimage to the Piccadilly Street Food Markets every week.
This little huddle of colourful huts on the edge of Piccadilly Gardens is home to some of the best cheap eats in town.
The area has had a major upgrade in recent years from the days when it was just a couple of rows of gazebos, and now you’ll find the same familiar faces whipping up tasty lunches for queues of Mancs, five days a week.
Whether you’re after a healthy falafel wrap, an enormous Star Wars-inspired smash burger, or a proper Indian grill, the Piccadilly Street Food Markets have got your back.
Here’s a quick guide to all the traders currently operating here.
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All the food at the Piccadilly Street Food Markets
Rita’s Reign
Rita’s Reign in ManchesterRita’s Reign in Manchester
There’s a reason Rita’s Reign attracts the biggest queues at the Piccadilly Street Food Markets – this is some properly good food.
You can get gigantic boxes stuffed with jollof rice, boneless jerk chicken, curry goat, vegan curry, plantain and more, with prices starting from £7. Unbelievable value for money.
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The Bearded Feeder
The Bearded Feeder’s Wookiee burger at Piccadilly Gardens
A staple of the Piccadilly Street Food Markets, this stall is somewhere you can still get a filling lunch for a fiver – and you’ll get some pretty solid Star Wars puns on the side.
The Bearded Feeder serves the best smash burgers in the city from just £5, plus loaded fries, filthy hot dogs, tacos, and pulled pork.
Falafel King MCR
On the menu here you’ll find wraps stuffed with fillings that are great value for money.
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Falafel wraps start from £5, but you can add in halloumi, aubergine, and fries, make it a meal deal, or order a falafel lunch box or salad instead.
Simply Delicious by Dine with Saira
Rice and three is a Manchester institution, but here lunch boxes include samosas, bhajis, seekh kebabs and loads more.
There’s a good choice of curries and grilled meats, plus samosas with the crispest pastry in Manchester.
Turkish Grill
‘Shawarma, doner, casserole!’ the team behind the counter at Turkish Grill holler out every lunchtime – a pretty effective marketing tactic, judging by the speed their meat dishes go flying out.
You can get a chicken shawarma wrap for £7, loaded with salad, meat, chips and homemade tzatziki.
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Famous Philadelphia Cheesesteaks
It’s all about the meat here at Philadelphia Cheese Steak, served on chips, rice, or in huge sub rolls.
There’s a Buffalo chicken cheese steak, or a classic Philly cheese steak, which are both well worth your attention.
Nashville Chicken
The portions are as big as the flavours at Nashville Chicken, which serves a proper USA twist on all things chicken.
Expect chicken poutine, buffalo wings, Nashville chicken (obviously) and even a chicken cheese dog.
Piccadilly Bakes
You can’t walk past Piccadilly Bakes without their incredible cookies and cakes catching your eye.
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Here you’ll find chunky cookies with gooey middles stuffed with pistachio creme, kinder Bueno and more, plus old-school chocolate cake and custard and loads more.
The Dutch Fishmen
Have you ever seen a potato being sliced into a spiral, jammed onto a stick, battered, and fried before? Well you have now!
The Dutch Fishmen are another familiar face around Manchester and also serve seafood dishes like cod bites, fried prawns and fish burgers.
Piccadilly Thai
Sometimes nothing will hit the spot quite like a hefty box of Thai food – and this place is a real craving-buster.
Their crispy chilli beef, bright orange sweet chilli chicken, Thai holy basil stir fry and many more dishes are available in mix-and-match boxes.
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BangGaBangGa
This place used to operate under a different name and went insanely viral for its Korean corn dogs, which have molten mozzarella inside that will stretch for miles (okay not quite).
As well as these delicious snacks, they have authentic dishes like Tteokbokki, Korean rice cakes, served in a punchy and spicy sauce.
Chen’s Happy House
A hangover cure, boxed – each lunch at Chen’s Happy House is piled high with salt and pepper flavoured items, fried things, chips, rice, and noodles, with plenty of options.
Acclaimed restaurant staffed by prison inmates announces sad closure
Daisy Jackson
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The Clink, an acclaimed restaurant where the food is prepared and served by prison inmates, has announced its devastating closure.
The charity behind the restaurant, which is attached to HMP Styal, has confirmed that it will close for good on 31 July 2025.
The Clink is famed for the training and experience it provides inmates, helping them to get a head start into the hospitality industry when their sentence ends.
It’s also achieved plenty of acclaim as a restaurant in its own right, consistently being rated as the best restaurant in Wilmslow and voted Cheshire Restaurant of the Year in 2024.
Over the years, hundreds of students have earned qualifications including City & Guilds NVQs in Food and Beverage Service, Professional Cookery and Food Hygiene.
The Clink restaurant in Styal is closing
But The Clink has now announced that it will be closing this summer due to ‘a number of factors’, including costs and participant numbers.
Donna-Marie Edmonds, Chief Executive of The Clink Charity, said: “The decision not to renew our contract at HMP Styal has been made with an incredibly heavy heart.
“The Clink Charity’s mission is to reduce re-offending and we have been doing this at Styal, producing outstanding results for over a decade.
“Although the restaurant will officially close this summer, our partnership at Styal will be remembered not only for its landmark training outcomes, but as a beacon of hope, where women have sought refuge and rehabilitation.”
As one of those students put it: “If it wasn’t for my journey at The Clink, I wouldn’t be where I am now.”
Deansgate’s new mini brunch triangle attracting big queues – and rightly so
Danny Jones
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Manchester is absolutely bursting at the seams with brilliant brunch spots, and don’t even get just started on trying to pick from all 10 boroughs as a whole, it’s impossible.
However, over the past year or so, we suddenly realised that somewhat of a city centre trio of brunch spots serving unreal breakfasts, midday delights and early afternoon scran has emerged.
While some have been there longer than others, all three of these places within aren’t just within spitting distance of each other but are enjoying a real wave of success at the moment – and it’s no surprise why: they’re all utterly incredible.
Three brilliant city centre brunch spots for you to try
1. Bruncho
First up on the list is the aptly named Bruncho, which opened just last summer, and despite announcing itself to the Manchester hospitality scene rather quietly at the time, it’s starting to pick up some serious pace now.
Specialising in unreal breakfasts and Mediterranean exports like menemen, Turkish eggs, their own spins of spicy favourite shakshuka, as well as plenty of dessert-forward plates with colour palettes as full as the plates themselves.
It goes without saying that you can obviously get a proper good ‘Bruncho Full English‘, but we’d encourage you to branch out and, who knows, maybe have a brekkie that features ice cream? In fact, it’s sentences like that which make it our Thomas’ favourite way to start the day – albeit ideally a lie-in.
Now, another very strong candidate which has been around on the Manc brunch scene much longer than the other two on this list is local success story, Alex’s Bakery, though we’ll admit we’d mainly visited this place for the unreal brownies, cupcakes and other assorted sweet treats until recently.
However, in addition to the popularity of their lunch deal (a panini, cupcake and drink), they’ve really stepped up their wider brunch offerings of late, going from what was once just a Manchester Artisan Market back in 2014 to branching out into everything good you can put on toast and tonnes more.
It may not garner the often ridiculously long queues of other places, but that’s because this place has a steady flow of regulars all week long who’ve steadily fallen in love with it over many years. They’re tres leches cakes alone are well worth the visit.
3. Acai And The Tribe
Last but not least, the acai craze is undoubtedly one of the biggest foodie trends around right now, as proven by the lines that gather outside this Great Northern venue at least once virtually every weekend – but Acai And The Tribe has actually been on the hype for ages.
That being said, after moving from Arndale Market to Deansgate Mews back in 2022 and now along the main strip in recent months, their popularity has skyrocketed. If you’re looking for a health brunch open packed with vibrance, vitamins and plenty of other very nice toppings, this is the one for you.
We’ll warn you, finding the right window to visit is essentially if you don’t want to wait around for ages these days, but both Clem and Daphne still greatly approve, so it’s it gets the seal of approval from us.
So, while we could recommend you a whole load of fantastic places in around Manchester city centre, we’ve been particularly charmed by this mini Manc brunch triangle around Deansgate.
Best of all, it’s just always great to see local businesses thriving, isn’t it? Especially when it comes to people lining the streets and sending it viral just for a chance to taste their offerings.
Modern breakfast and brunch are things that can be either perfect in their simplicity or surprising in their creativity; either way, we’re glad there are plenty of examples of that here in Manchester.
Daisy Jackson -
28th June 2024 
