One of the Gay Village’s most beloved nighttime hotspots has just launched a fundraising raffle and the lucky winner could secure an impressive prize.
How does a £1,000 bar tab to spend once the venue reopens sound?
TriBeCa – Manchester’s only New York loft-style bar situated on the edge of the Gay Village on Sackville Street – has delighted fans of the city’s nightlife scene by announcing the launch of this unmissable competition as a way of raising vital funds it lost as a result of the ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
There are a whopping 2,500 raffle tickets currently up for grabs at this 550-cap venue, which comes with reserved seating for you and your friends to host the ultimate post-lockdown party.
Tickets will set you back £5 a piece, and the raffle will end on Sunday 28th February at 3pm.
TriBeCa Manchester is an independently-owned community venue was established in the heart of the city centre back in 1999, and has since gone on to foster a truly cooperative feel.
It was founded by Hazel O’Keefe, who is also the brainchild behind Dulcet Sounds, Laughing Cows Comedy, Club Feminista, The UK Women in Comedy Festival, and is the catalyst for many other projects, which saw her work recognised by Manchester City Council in 2014 by presenting her with a prestigious ‘Women of Arts and Culture’ award.
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But despite its cultural significance to the city, TriBeCa has received little to no funding as a result of its business closure due to continuous restrictions, which saw the doors to the venue close to the public back in March 2020 and no reopen since.
It’s said that the unoccupied costs of the building are £10,000 a month, and with the business being closed, these debts are piling up, so in an effort to cut costs, Ms O’Keefe did the unthinkable.
She made the difficult decision to move out of her flat and plough her savings into keeping her business afloat.
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TriBeCa Manchester
Despite these amounting difficulties however, Ms O’Keefe has continued to her best to try and support the community of Manchester.
In November 2020, she launched her Sunday Roasts – which included an option to buy “a hot drink and roast dinner for one of Manchester’s homeless” – and in December 2020, she also supported the local charity Baubles 4 Beds, which partners with local school children to create baubles to sell, with all the money raised going towards some of the most vulnerable and homeless people across the region.
Promoting “arts, culture and diversity” are all at the heart of TriBeCa Manchester’s ethos, which is why supporting this raffle is such a worthy cause – and the prize is undoubtedly pretty great too.
New Michelin Stars to be announced from Manchester in another major coup for the city
Daisy Jackson
The extremely prestigious Michelin Guide has chosen Manchester to host next year’s announcement ceremony.
The restaurant guide awards hospitality businesses with what’s considered by most to be the most reputable accolades in the world – Michelin Stars.
The announcement of which restaurants are receiving new Michelin Stars typically takes place down in London – but they’ve chosen to come to Manchester for 2024.
It’s another major coup for our city and a testament to the city’s ever-evolving cultural scene, joining tomorrow’s Chanel fashion show in the high-end brands hosting events here.
The Michelin Guide confirmed that it would be using Manchester’s iconic Midland Hotel to host the 2024 announcements on 5 February 2024.
Michelin famously snubbed Manchester for decades, with its spotlight passing straight over us the the city remaining star-less for more than 40 years.
So maybe this is their way of making amends (we’ll take it), or it’s alluding to some new stars for our city’s restaurant scene, with tonnes of newcomers making waves in the city.
The French at The Midland has long been tipped for a Michelin star
Restaurants who could be in the running to receive a Michelin Star including The French (which is inside The Midland Hotel), Where the Light Gets In in Stockport, Higher Ground, Erst, and The Sparrows.
The event will also be broadcast live, with the new selection launching immediately after the event on The Michelin Guide website and app.
As well as the Michelin Stars, other awards including Green Stars (celebrating sustainability in the restaurant industry) and Special Awards (celebrating industry professionals) will also be presented.
Gwendal Poullennec, International Director of The MICHELIN Guides, said: “We are honoured to be bringing our celebration of the finest British and Irish gastronomy to the welcoming and ever-evolving city of Manchester.
“The historic Midland Hotel – a long-standing jewel in the city’s architectural crown – is a venue befitting of the occasion. The MICHELIN Guide team are busy preparing an event that will do justice to the exceptional skill, dedication and hard work found across our industry.”
You can get a festive lunch for just 99p from Deliveroo this week… but it involves sprouts
Danny Jones
We were going to call this a bit of a Marmite dilemma but we just realised that sprouts already have their own love-hate thing going on; either way, you can sort your lunch from just 99p for the rest of this week through Deliveroo, but it does involve the controversial Christmas dish…
The famous festive food is on almost every dinner table during the holiday period whether the people sat around it like them or not — that’s just the cultural existence this divisive vegetable has enjoyed for centuries — but have you ever heard of a ‘sprout butty’ or, more importantly, would you like to try one?
Deliveroo Editions, the purpose-built delivery-only kitchen service that is popping up all over the UK, are looking to win over sprout-haters this winter by coming up with its own take on the Christmas classic.
It is estimated that around 1.5 million Brits have a phobia of the leafy little round veggie and while more than half of the North West (52%) hate them/think they are the worst part of a Christmas dinner, there’s one kind of food that pretty much everyone loves: a simple sarnie.
Are you bold enough to brave a sprout butty? (Credit: Deliveroo)
With that in mind, Deliveroo had the idea to bring the two together in an effort to reinvent the troublesome green and have created the ‘Christmas Sproutwich’ and it’s exactly what it sounds like and more.
Consisting of homemade sprout focaccia, sprout mayonnaise, a “succulent” sprout stuffing, roasted sprout halves like you’ll see on December 25th, fried sprout shavings and zesty marinated sprout leaves, the sandwich has sprouts in every component and is hoping to elevate their reputation this Christmas.
The beauty of this thing is that it also just goes to show how much you can actually do with the humble little sprout, and with plenty of time to get inspired before the big day too. To be honest, ever since we started cooking them in lots of butter, herbs and bacon, we love the little buggers.
Now, while Deliveroo are obviously not the only people to have put a twist on sprouts or even create a sprout sandwich, even — Bundobust’s sprout butties and bhajis are legendary and have just returned for their 2023 Christmas menu — we never thought we’d come across ‘sprout mayo’. It’s already earned some fans though:
While they do get a bad rep from time to time, the latest research from the delivery service suggests that roughly three in five (62%) North Westerners believe a Christmas dinner isn’t complete without sprouts and although the majority of us (36%) hate them, around 32% love them.
The question is, will you love the Christmas Sproutwich? You can order yours just in time for your dinner break — or whenever you like, to be honest, we’re not the boss of you — for just 99p via the app or by simply typing in ‘Deliveroo Christmas Sproutwich’ online HERE.
Available in just a few cities (Manchester being one of them) and lasting only until Friday, 8 December, this could be the moment you switch sides in the great sprout debate. Let us know your verdict as well; we want to see just how far you sprout love/adventurous appetites go.
This recent creative promotion isn’t the only one we’re big fans of either, as an Ancoats institution is holding a great offer in aid of those in need this winter.
Emily Sergeant -
7th January 2021 
