Manchester’s pubs, bars and hospitality professionals will be celebrated in a huge awards ceremony later this month.
Now in its fifth year, the Manchester Bar Awards picks out the very best operators in the city – with 2022’s categories championing the city’s Best Restaurant Bar, Best Speciality Bar, Best New Bar, Best Food Offering, and Bartender of the Year.
Further categories pay homage to professionals within the industry, with awards given to the best bar backs, front of house staff and rising stars.
Run by a group of Manchester bartenders and hospitality professionals, the awards were set up by the admins of a local Facebook group in 2018 to champion local people working in the industry.
First created in 2012 to help fundraise for Movember, today the Facebook group is a decade old and one of the country’s leading hospitality-focused groups – boasting over 17,000 members.
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Image: Climat
Image: Blinker
The shortlist for the 2023 awards has just been revealed, with members of the city’s bar community now being encouraged to vote for their favourites.
In a nod to the quirkiness of the city’s bar scene, this year’s Best Speciality Bar Award names Ancoats wine bar Flawd, The Briton’s Protection (for its epic Jack Daniels collection) and The Whiskey Jar, brewery-owned bar Northern Monk, and Mulligan’s of Deansgate (widely renowned for having the most perfect pint of Guinness in the city.)
Salt & Pepper, The Sparrows, Kong’s, Climat and Lazy Tony’s Lasagneria are all shortlisted for the Restaurant / Food Concept of the Year category, whilst the Best New Bar award shortlist features Blinker, Sterling, Exhibition, New Century and Project Halcyon.
Elsewhere, rising stars and MVPS have their own categories, whilst an outstanding achievement award highlights those who’ve done good for the community – picking out a key leader of Manchester’s hospitality recruitment scene, alongside others including mental-health focused organisation So Let’s Talk.
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Image: Speak In Code
Image: Schofield’s Bar
This year’s event ceremony will be held on 14 March at First Street dive bar Bunny Jackson’s, an industry favourite amongst many of Manchester’s bartenders, and promises to be a raucous, fun-filled affair.
Speaking on the upcoming awards ceremony, organiser Nate Booker said: “We were amazed and proud at the breadth of people and venues included in this year’s Manchester’s Bars Awards shortlist.
“It truly is the pinnacle of the great talent and ambition we have in the city. We want to thank everyone who voted for helping to build this shortlist and we can’t wait to see the results as we put it forward to our wider community to have their say!
“And we’d like to say a big thank you to all the sponsors that help make the event so vibrant and enjoyable! See you on the 14th at Bunny Jackson’s.”
Voting is open now and will close next Monday 13 March at midnight.
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The full shortlist for this year’s Manchester Bar Awards ceremony:
Bartender of the Year – Sponsored by Angel’s Envy Kentucky Bourbon
Jonathan Moncur – Speak in Code
Deana Ferguson – Hawksmoor/Redlight
Adam Montanaro-Taylor – Project Halcyon
Dionysios ‘Dio’ Tzorouchof – Cane & Grain
Conor Knowles – Schofield’s
Manchester’s Best Bar Back – Sponsored by Belle de Brillet Liqueur
Sid Curry – Sherlock’s
Huanxuejiao Xiong – Sterling
Craig Dwyer – Junior Jackson’s
Eduardo Barbosa – 20 Stories
Iglis Zaraj – Tattu
Manchester’s Rising Star – Sponsored by Old J Rum
Reah Owen – Project Halcyon
Caitlyn Grocott – Blind Tyger
Eddie Smyth – Tariff
Joe Kereszteny-Lewis – 10 Tib Lane
Ben Topham-Taylor – Blind Tyger
Front of House Hero- Sponsored by Cazcabel Tequila
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Alex Proudfoot – Wolf at the Door
Paola Mariotti – Sterling
Hannah Wingfield – Ramona
Taylor Martin – Tariff & Dale
Oliver Hughes – Ramona
Outstanding Achievement Award! Sponsored by Jägermeister
Abi Dunn – 68 People
The Schofields – Schofields, Sterling, Stock Market Grill, Atomeca
Nathan Larkin – Speak in Code
Dan Berger – Blinker Bar
Paddy & the Team at So Let’s Talk
Manchester’s Bar of the Year Sponsored by Jameson
Decided by the industry.
Best New Bar Sponsored by Ford’s Gin
Blinker
Sterling
Exhibition
New Century
Project Halcyon
Speciality Venue of the Year Sponsored by Tipples
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Briton’s Protection – Whisky
Flawd, Wine
Northern Monk, Beer
Mulligan’s – Guiness
Whisky Jar – Whisky
Restaurant/Food Concept the Year sponsored by Tito’s Vodka
Salt & Pepper
Sparrows
Kong’s
Climat
Lazy Tony’s Lasagneria
Further event partners include MONIN (The Official Syrup & Liqueur Partner), The Official Mixer & Softs Partner (Fever Tree), The Official Hooch of the MBAs (Hooch), The Official Media Partner (The Manc), The Official Reception Drink of the MBAs (Buzzball), The Official NOLO Partner (Lyre’s) The Official Hydration Partner (Marlish Water) and The Awards Partner (Urban Bar).
‘The average cost of a pint’ in the UK by region, according to the latest data
Danny Jones
Does it feel like pints keep getting more and more expensive almost every week at this point? Yes. Yes, it does, and while you can’t expect a city as big as Manchester to be one of the cheapest places to get one in the UK, we do often wonder how it compares to other parts of the country.
Well, as it happens, someone has recently crunched the numbers for us across the nation, breaking down which regions pay the most and the least for their pints.
The data has been examined by business management consultancy firm, CGA Strategy, using artificial intelligence and information from the latest Retail Price Index figures to find out what the ‘average cost of a pint’ is down south, up North and everywhere in between.
While the latest statistics provided by the group aren’t granular enough to educate us on Greater Manchester’s pint game exactly, we can show you how our particular geographic region is looking on the leaderboard at the moment.
That’s right, we Mancunians and the rest of the North West are technically joint mid-table when it comes to the lowest average cost of a pint, sharing the places from 3rd to 8th – according to CGA, anyway.
Powered by consumer intelligence company, NIQ (NielsenIQ) – who also use AI and the latest technology to deliver their insights – we can accept it might seem like it’s been a while since you’ve paid that little for a pint, especially in the city centre, but these are the stats they have published.
Don’t shoot the messenger, as they say; unless, of course, they’re trying to rob you blind for a bev. Fortunately, we’ve turned bargain hunting at Manchester bars into a sport at this point.
We might not boast the lowest ‘average’ pint cost in the UK, but we still have some bloody good places to keep drinking affordable.
London tops the charts (pretends to be shocked)
While some of you may have scratched your eyes at the supposed average pint prices here in the North West, it won’t surprise any of you to see that London leads the way when it came to the most expensive pint when it came to average cost in the UK.
To be honest, £5.44 doesn’t just sound cheap but virtually unheard of these days.
CGA has it that the average cost of a beer in the British capital is actually down 15p from its price last September, but as we all know, paying upwards of £7 for a pint down that end of the country is pretty much par for the course the closer you get to London.
Yet more reason you can be glad you live around here, eh? And in case you thought you were leaving this article with very little, think again…
Tesco are introducing ‘VAR-style’ self-checkouts in the UK
Danny Jones
Many people think VAR has already gone too far and want it gone from football full stop, and we’re here to tell you that you’re a fool; your hopes are in vain, and the technology is only going to become more common as time goes on. Sorry.
So much so, in fact, that Tesco look are bringing in their own virtual referee into self-checkout systems in shops. You could say the ‘game’s gone…’
Of course, we’re being a bit flippant here, but if you have seen ‘VAR’ and ‘Tesco‘, you’re not seeing things: this is genuinely a thing that is being rolled out here in the UK, with video footage of the supermarket chain’s next self-checkout technology going viral online.
Thought you’d got away with sneaking an extra little something in the bag without paying? Think again.
— UB1UB2 West London (Southall) (@UB1UB2) May 28, 2025
We’ll admit, this was the first time we’d come across the technology, but as it turns out, the updated self-checkout service has been in place for a while.
Similar VAR checkouts have already been installed at other retailers, Sainsbury’s and ASDA, although some reports claim that while stores capture footage of shoppers to check if they’ve scanned all of their items, it is thought that not all of these self-service tills show a playback when an error is detected.
Although this particular speculation has sparked some uproar and debate online, many have quite rightly pointed out that CCTV records your movement in any given shop.
Regardless, it’s fair to say that aside from the obvious memes and people poking fun at the new system, many on social media have shared some pretty strong opinions on the matter.
Not that it matters much – it’s likely this will soon become increasingly the norm, with the likes of Sainsbury’s having already introduced barriers which require customers to scan their receipt in order to leave at branches such as the site on Regent Road Retail Park over in Salford.
As yet, it’s unclear how many of these new self-service tills are in operation and whether they are limited to larger supermarket locations of their Express convenience stores, but don’t be surprised if you come across one.
Put simply, if a barcode isn’t registered before being put on the scale and/or set aside to be packed away, the Tesco till will read: “The last item wasn’t scanned properly. Remove from bagging area and try again.”
Addressing these new VAR-style checkouts in an official statement, a company spokesperson said: “We are always looking at technology to make life easier for our customers.
“We have recently installed a new system at some stores which helps customers using self-service checkouts identify if an item has not been scanned properly, making the checkout process quicker and easier.”
What do you make of the new Tesco and their new VAR self-checkout technology?
Georgina Pellant -
6th March 2023 
