A new bar has opened underneath a shopping arcade in Bolton, taking over the former home of the town’s infamous Oasis-inspired venue Definitely Maybe.
New pink and green cocktail den Upside Down has just moved into the underground unit in Mawdsley Street, which has sat empty since Bolton’s own Gallagher brothers Paul and Mark decided to up sticks and move their hit bar into a bigger home nearby.
Promising to bring the ‘boujee’ cocktail bar atmosphere of Manchester out to Bolton, co-owner Sinclair Little revealed that he has secured a late license so that Upside Down can serve drinks until 4.30am.
There will also be some live music at the venue as well as drag acts and tribute acts, but Sinclair insists he doesn’t want to compete with Definitely Maybe.
Rather, guests can expect a playlist of feel-good ‘cheesy’ hits from over the decades as well as old school R&B.
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Sinclair, who is opening the bar with his partner Rebecca Smith, told the Manchester Evening News: “We may go down the clubby route a bit later on but early doors, it will be more of a boujee cocktail bar.
“Every now and again we’ll have some live music but we don’t want to really compete with Definitely Maybe and places like that.”
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He continued: ” “We want a Manchester quality bar, where instead of people getting a taxi there, they’ll want to come here instead. If we brought you in here with a blindfold on and took it off, you wouldn’t know that you was in Bolton.”
Drinks-wise, alongside crowd pleasers like pornstar martinis and zombies Upside Down is also serving a signature cocktail named after the bar.
The Upside Down, made with raspberry vodka, blue curacao, lemon sour, bitters and pineapple juice, puts a twist on a classic French martini – a cocktail first invented in the 1980s at one of Keith McNally’s New York City bars.
Other intriguing signatures at Upside Down include the Terry’s Chocolate Orange Delight (triple sec, Baileys, creme de cacao white, and espresso), and Hubba Bubba Baby (gin, bubble gum syrup, blue curacao, cranberry juice, and lemonade).
As for that all-important Instagram photo opportunity, owners have already installed flower walls inside the pink and green-themed cocktail bar and plan to add a swing further down the line.
Open from 8pm beneath St Andrews Court shopping centre, to find out more about Upside Down head over to its Instagram page here.
Feature image – Upside Down
Eats
A fancy new pizzeria has opened in Manchester serving posh pizzas and seasonal sharing plates
Clementine Hall
If you’ve ever wanted a pizza with smoked eel on, then you’re in luck.
Introducing Proloco, the brand spanking new restaurant from chef Richard Carver, founder of Honest Crust Sourdough Pizza, and Dan Hope, co-founder of Manchester club Rainy Heart.
Located in One Port Street over in Ancoats, this isn’t your bog standard pizzeria – this is lavish.
Here you’ll find a weekly rotating selection of 18-inch pizzas and sharing plates all made with the very best local produce imaginable.
Forget your bog standard pepperoni slice, on the menu here you’ll find a porchetta pizza with shishito peppers and Cornish kern, a charred greens pizza with sugar snap peas and anchovies, and our personal favourite – a smoked eel pie with lemon basil and pine nuts.
There’s also a tomato butter pie, which features slithers of butter in place of your usual mozzarella.
And if you just can’t decide, you can have your pizza as a half-and-half of flavours.
Sharing plates include tomatoes with lardo, roasted beetroot and a crispy egg with mortadella and fennel.
A half-and-half pizzaBeautiful interiors of ProlocoThe butter pie pizzaSmall plates, wine, and £7 negroniProloco opens on Great Ancoats Street in AugustScoops of homemade gelatoProloco’s open kitchenThe eel pizza at Proloco
A real selling point, though, is the £7 negroni alongside a selection of honest wine and carefully chosen beer from local suppliers as well as an aperitivo list.
The interior is simple, but beautiful – a colour palette of butter yellow, blue, and huge burgundy speakers to match the chairs that invite you to sit at long banquet-worthy tables or in front of the many windows.
Richard will be calling on his longstanding relationships with producers across the North West (and beyond) for his ingredients, from flour grown and milled in the Lake District, vegetables from Cinderwood Market Garden and Organic North, artisanal charcuterie and cheeses from Somerset, and the best tomatoes and oil from Italy.
He said: “Proloco is about cooking food I genuinely love with the best people and produce around me.
“I want it to feel effortless – warm, a little bit fun, and always worth coming back to.”
Proloco will officially open its doors on Great Ancoats Street on Wednesday 26 August.
Team behind award-winning cocktail bar Stray to open second Manchester bar
Daisy Jackson
The team behind Manchester’s award-winning cocktail bar Stray have announced a second bar is on the way.
Bar Dos will be an all-new neighbourhood bar, promising to be the ‘tearaway younger sibling’ of Stray.
You can expect everything from pints of Stella to refined cocktails, plus DJs all weekend long.
Set to open very soon, with a September launch pencilled into our diaries already, Bar Dos will be joining a couple of other big names in a new building on Great Ancoats Street.
They’ll count Proloco and Osma as neighbours once all three ventures are up and running this year.
Stray first opened at Mackie Mayor back in 2023, and shot into the UK’s Top 50 Cocktail Bars just over a year later.
Bar Dos will open in Manchester in SeptemberBar Dos is the second site for Stray
There, it occupies a beautiful corner unit with huge windows, and an outside terrace, perfect for sipping on their best-selling cocktails like their tomato vine margarita and their Fanta Limon (a boozy version of everyone’s favourite balcony tipple).
Now ready to launch a second site, the team will soon open Bar Dos, which will be a late-night, music-focused neighbourhood bar.
DJs already announced, along with renowned artists who have curated playlists, include Space Afrika, Chunky, Private Joy, Konnie Kon of Children of Zeus, and Stray residents Rhod Parry and Stu Richards.
Bar Dos will open on Great Ancoats Street this September.
Georgina Pellant -
13th March 2023 
