Father’s Day is approaching fast, and if you’re anything like us you’ve left sorting something out to the absolute last minute.
Don’t panic, though. It’s all going to be ok. We’ve got you covered.
If you’ve got a dad who already has everything he wants and is, frankly, impossible to buy for, the best thing you can do this Sunday is head out for a bit of quality one on one time.
Fortunately, there’s plenty of places around town offering little gifts and freebies – so all you need to do is book the table, and the staff will take care of the rest.
Keep reading to discover where to take your dad in Manchester this Father’s Day.
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Yard and Coop – Free beer
Image: Yard and Coop
Image: Yard and Coop
This Northern Quarter fried chicken institution is famous for its gigantic buttermilk chicken burgers, fiery wings and chips, and this Father’s Day you can get all three with its Big Daddy Combo.
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The perfect gift for the man who is impossible to buy for, you can get a burger, fries, wings, plus a free pint of Yard’s house pilsner for just £20.
Note that the offer excludes the Massive C*ck burger.
The Real Greek – Free baklava
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Image: The Real Greek
Image: The Real Greek
Head down to The Real Greek inside Manchester’s sun trap Corn Exchange this weekend to soak up some rays on Exchange Square with your old man.
With the warm weather set to continue all weekend, pull up a pew, enjoy an al fresco lunch and let dad enjoy a free baklava on the house.
The Lowry Hotel – Free beer
Image: The Lowry Hotel
Image: The Lowry Hotel
This Father’s Day, The Lowry Hotel is giving away a free Hofmeister beer to every dad.
The 5 star hotel will host a celebratory Gentleman’s Tea with pork pies and scones topped with bacon jam and chive sour cream, from midday to 4pm.
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Those heading down can enjoy a complimentary beer alongside the new Afternoon Tea.
20 Stories – Free gift from Grey Goose
Image: 20 Stories
Image: 20 Stories
For dads who like the good things in life, head up to rooftop bar 20 Stories this Sunday for a special rooftop dining experience in partnership with Grey Goose.
The restaurant is serving a special Father’s Day menu for one day only, and those who get down early will also receive a free gift from Grey Goose.
Honest Burger – £10 off your order
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Great for burger lovers and sun seekers alike, this Bridge Street burger bar is famed for its top-quality beef and salted rosemary hand cut fries.
This Father’s Day, spend over £40 and get another £10 off your bill by using the code FATHERSDAY10.
Suki Suki – Free beer
Image: Suki Suki
Image: Suki Suki
If your dad considers himself a bit of a jokester, then this offer should be well up his street.
Great Northern Warehouse newbie Suki Suki is giving away free pints of Japanese lager Asahi in exchange for its customers’ best dad jakes all day long.
Albert’s Schloss will be handing out free beers to dads from 12pm this Sunday in celebration of Father’s Day.
With belting roast dinners served all day until 9pm as part of the venue’s wunderbar Sunday Service, choose from Lancashire beef, Schwienshaxe, Cheshire chicken or a brand new vegan roast with mushroom celeriac, sun-dried tomato stuffed confit onion, vegan cheese and vegetable gravy.
Featured image – Yard and Coop
Manchester
Police appeal for witnesses following rape of teenage boy in Manchester’s Printworks
Emily Sergeant
An urgent appeal for information and witnesses has been made following the rape of a teenage boy in Manchester city centre last week.
Greater Manchester Police (GMP) is currently investigating the rape and serious assault of a teenager.
The male victim – who is aged under 18, and has therefore not been publicly named – arranged to meet a man via social media, and was attacked in the toilets of a venue on Dantzic Street inside Printworks at around 5pm last Friday (24 April 2026).
The victim has described the suspect as an Asian male aged between 18 and 20, of slim build, with a goatee beard, black hair parted in the centre and covering his forehead, and at the time of the incident, he was said to be wearing a black puffy coat, dark jeans, white-and-black trainers, and glasses.
Police arrested a 19-year-old man on suspicion of rape over the weekend, but he has since been bailed pending further enquiries.
With the investigation proceeding at pace, police are now asking for the public for their help and, in particular, appealing for potential witnesses who was in the area at the time.
“We have committed a large number of officers from across the force to the investigation and are carrying out extensive forensic and CCTV enquiries,” explained Detective Chief Inspector Chris Woodburn, from GMP’s City of Manchester CID.
“We are appealing for anyone who was in the Printworks area at the time of the incident to come forward. This would have been a busy time of day when there would have been a lot of people around.
“We also believe there may have been a second man in or around the toilets in a licensed premises off Dantzic Street at the time of the incident, and we want to speak to him as a witness as we believe he may have vital information that could assist with our investigation.”
Can you help? Anyone with information or who was in the area at the time is urged to call GMP’s dedicated team on 0161 856 4259, on 101, or via LiveChat online quoting log 2647 of 24/4/26.
You can also call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
Featured Image – GMP
Manchester
Five Greater Manchester-based music artists you should listen to | April 2026
Danny Jones
Ay up, you lot – we’re back with another box office batch of music from in and around Greater Manchester for you to get your teeth stuck into.
We’d like to think you know the deal by now, but if not, here’s a quick rundown for you…
Every month, we look back on the local bands and artists, either hailing from or now based in the area, that are spending regular time in our rotation.
It doesn’t matter if they’re still just young prospects or they’ve been at it for decades: if it’s good and it’s been in our ears, it goes on the list. Ready? Let’s go, then.
Five Manc bands and artists we’ve been listening to recently
1. Harry Lyon
First up is April’s cover star: the wonderfully talented Harry Lyon, who is another born and bred and now quietly plying his trade here in Greater Manchester and already showcasing a great level of versatility early in his career.
He moved to the city from Sheffield not too long ago, and his creative output has only ramped up since he got here. Toying with everything from alt-pop/indie to straight singer-songwriter stuff that wouldn’t sound out of place on the radio, his often R’n’B-esque vocals mean he can turn to multiple styles.
We actually lucky enough to bump into him in person earlier this month over in Stretford, and you’ll be glad to hear he’s also as sound a person as we hoped he’d be; he even teased a new single on the way, but for now, we’ll recommend ‘Violet’, ‘Backwards’ and the piano version of ‘While We’re Still Young’.
In fact, he does acoustic versions for most of his songs, and a fair few of them genuinely rival the originals in their own way.
From an up-and-comer to some Manc veterans that often get overlooked in the shadow of their even longer-standing and more well-known predecessors, but we’re going to go out on a limb and say something controversial here… We think we might prefer Black Grape to Happy Mondays.
Before you bite our heads off, let us explain: while the Mondays are obviously way more iconic and had a huge influence on the overall Madchester scene, we would argue that their progenic spin-off are almost a more honed evolution of at least some of what the Ryders and co. first created a buzz around.
Not only do the likes of ‘Kelly’s Heroes’, ‘Nine Lives’, ‘String Theory’ and more have so much more guitar in them (which will always score extra points for me), but more importantly, there is so much more successful experimentation with different instruments, cultural sounds and blends of energy.
It can be hard to know where to start, but those three examples aren’t bad options, and ‘In The Name of The Father’ is also such a vibe – we’re hoping we see it on the setlist for Outwards Fest next month.
BLACK GRAPE play Outwards Festival on Saturday 2nd May 😎
For fans of Sports Team, Spangled, Deadletter, and pretty much any current post-punk pioneers, these former students who originally hail from Cambridgeshire but have come up in and around the local rock scene have been making a splash for a little while, and now it feels like things are hitting a fever pitch.
Sometimes the idiosyncratic lyrics put you in mind of rising Oldham star, Seb Lowe; there’s even one intro that could be the start of a more upbeat and melody-forward King Krule, and you even get notes of Slaves/Soft Play at times. Whatever you hear, personally, you won’t find a bad song – we haven’t yet.
As the lyrics on ‘Are You The Best Yet?’ state, some of this stuff literally makes our knees go weak. We can’t remember the last time a band came around that has you eagerly awaiting the inevitable guitar break, let alone when you fully lock into one and pull a face (we’ve all got our own).
They’re so, SO good, and they help prolong some songs that, while brilliant, could feel more like fast-paced flashes in the pan without them. It all amounts to something extra and ups an already healthy dose of swagger: that’s definitely what you get on the recent ‘Cambridge Is On Fire’ and most of their tracks.
In at number four is another one to watch within the genre. Some industry figures have equated them to the likes of the Amyl and the Sniffers, Lambrini Girls, Viagra Boys, and so on, but we think there’s a much cooler sense of darkness going on with their approach – however familiar the repetitive guitar playing and aggressive, shouty vocals may be.
Luckily, their discography – not unlike that of their aforementioned punky peers – isn’t that extensive just yet, so you can easily work your way through all their releases soon enough, and they’ve also got a big gig at White Hotel coming up just after they drop their debut LP, Hodge Podge. Watch this space…
Our present picks would be ‘American Boy II’, ‘Marina’ for the foreboding sense of build and that central riff alone, and you simply have to listen to their latest single, ‘Creeping Offences’, which, understandably, is the best track in terms of production they’ve dropped yet.
We want to see them live before passing any decisive judgement, but we like what we’re seeing so far.
5. A Certain Ratio
Now, we’ve touched on electronic-influenced alternative group in Black Grape, but what about another truly influential act from within that fluid space? Probably one of your bands/favourite DJ’s favourite artists, whether you know it or not, A Certain Ratio were tastemakers long before even they knew.
If the previous two are post-punk, then these lot are the funkier forerunners, known for their trademark muted strumming patterns, heavily distorted, codified and multi-layered mixes, ACR have been going nearly half a century now, and they were doing all this stuff long before virtually anyone else.
You’ll inevitably fall down a bit of a rabbit hole listening to their stuff, but ‘All Comes Down To This’ is a good starting point, and ‘1982’ has always made us think of what a Doctor Who-themed rave might sound like.
Oh, and purely because it still sticks with us as an eye-opening first listen, it really doesn’t get much better than this one:
And once again, that’s all she wrote.
We hope you dive into at least some of these names over the long bank holiday weekend, as three uninterrupted days of listening couldn’t have timed any better.
Georgina Pellant -
12th June 2023 
