Eats

Ramona and The Firehouse to open giant new venue with ‘Manchester’s biggest beer garden’

The team will take over Manchester’s largest factory and metalworks.

Georgina Pellant - 8th March 2023

The team behind one of Ancoat’s coolest venues has been quietly working away on plans for a new venue on the other side of town for months. Now, at last, they’ve teased out some details – promising to open this summer and bring ‘Manchester’s biggest beer garden’ to Piccadilly East.

Called Diecast, the new 5,000 capacity space is set to be something of a behemoth. Within its giant new beer garden, its vast outside area will also house an open-air BBQ kitchen, ‘NeoPan’ pizzeria and festival-style ‘House of Daiquiri’ and ‘Rum Town’ bars.

Specialising in frozen daiquiris and pina coladas alongside heritage and new world rums, when the next heatwave hits this summer we know where we will want to be drinking.

Add to that plans for an in-house beer and kombucha brewery, night market, brewing co., warehouse restaurant, and a huge festival stage, and it really does sound like this is going to be a huge new opening for Manchester this summer.

Set to open in stages, according to bosses the outdoor area will launch first although no date has been set as of yet.

Emphasising the size of the project, Joel Wilkinson, DieCast Director and owner, said “We’re taking all our learnings from Ramona and The Firehouse, but this time it’s on an industrial scale.

“It’s more than a venue. It’s an area within itself. A new creative neighbourhood for the city.”

Due to the sheer scale of the site, the city centre location and striking industrial aesthetics, DieCast is already in use as the industrial backdrop for events, parties, shoots, and film locations.

Adelaide Winter, Creative Director at Diecast, added: “The Factory floor and Machine Works are already being used for creative events, filmmakers, musicians and event producers to use.

“This is the first part of establishing DieCast as a new creative resource for the city, but this summer we will finally open the garden to the public for the first time ”

Built around a 250,000-square-foot former foundry and warehouse. Untouched since its last update in 1983, it’s a paradigm of Manchester’s industrial aesthetic: with corrugated steel, roof-block walls, large roller shutters, and a concrete terrazzo stretching throughout.

Just a few minutes walk from Manchester Piccadilly train station, Diecast will be located between Store Street and Ducie Street. To keep up with more updates, make sure to follow Diecast on Instagram here.

Feature image – Supplied