There are carb overloads, and then there is Bread & Bowls‘ Full English breakfast in a hollowed-out loaf.
First launched in February 2020, these ginormous loaves of sourdough – stuffed with fry-up favourites like high-grade local sausages, crispy streaky bacon, beans, cheese, mushrooms, grilled tomatoes and hash browns – became something of a hungover lockdown sensation.
Now, Charlotte has revealed that she’s coming back into town, with plans to move her kitchen into brand new Spinningfields coffee shop 92 Degrees later this month.
With a range of dishes designed ‘for the greedy’, as well as the famous Full English breakfast bowls fans of her bready-heavy creations will also be able to get their hands on a full loafed-up lunch and brunch menu.
Image: Bread and Bowl
Image: Bread and Bowl
Served between 8am and 4pm every day, think smashed avo and poached eggs, alongside the signature bread bowls and loaded hash browns topped with cheese and beans, sausages, streaky bacon and a perfect poached egg, all made to order.
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The kitchen is also vegan friendly, with plant-based alternatives available for all meat products.
The move to Hardman Square sees Charlotte take it back to where it all began, having first launched her Bread & Bowl concept here two years ago just before the Covid-19 pandemic hit.
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Initially opening at The Tavern (now The Lawn Club) in February 2020, following some incredible pop-ups with the likes of Mary & Archie, Lifeshare and Feel Good Club, she will head back to Spinningfields on 16 September.
However, whilst her bread bowls have been undeniably popular, it hasn’t all be plain sailing.
With just two weeks to go before the Spinningfield launch, she found that she had been locked out of her Instagram account, leaving her “low key losing my sh*t” all thanks to a verification scam.
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Her mum, an admin on the account, saw that she had been tagged in a verification request and uploaded some account details.
The Instagram Verification code scam is a common one, but unfortunately it has hit at the worst time – leaving Charlotte unable to promote her move to her 4,000+ followers just when she needs to communicate with them the most.
She told The Manc: “[I’ve] definitely been stressing alot about loosing the account and getting the word out.”
When they open inside 92 Degrees next week, she tells us that the coffee shop will “boast a cocktail menu alongside their amazing coffee.”
For those unfamiliar with 92 Degrees, it is an independent coffee company first established seven years ago with a single shop and roastery in Liverpool.
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Owners have been successfully operating in the city’s John Dalton Street and Middlewood Locks for the past 18 months, now they will launch their third in the city this month alongside kitchen residents Bread & Bowl.
Speaking from their North West headquarters, Jack said: “Spinningfields is the perfect location for our third site in Manchester and it’s an area that we have been paying close attention to for some time. We’ve enjoyed great success at our two other Manchester outlets and the reception we have received over the last 18 months there has been awesome.
“We are super excited to make our presence known even more so in the city and to get to know our new neighbours and customers. It is a brilliant space that really does lend itself to what 92 is all about, and we are looking forward to being able to call it ours.”
Jack added: “We have literally roasted billions of beans, opened sites all over the country and launched our own products and subscription service – but we will never get over the excitement attached to the launch of a new store. Opening in Spinningfields is another major step in the right direction for us and what we have planned further down the line.
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“Our 92 family is forever growing and the more the business expands, the better our offering becomes. Our Manchester family is just about to get a whole lot bigger, and we cannot wait.”
Manc architects submit plans to demolish 1970s office block and make way for new residential area
Danny Jones
A Manchester-based architects has submitted promising proposals to demolish an old 1970s-era office block and make way for a brand new residential community in Stockport.
The vision seems fairly ambitious and lofty – pun intended – but the potential outcome could be stunning.
Ollier Smurthwaite (OS) Architects are the local practice behind the new housing plans, which will not only provide nearly 300 new homes but also bring part of the Stopfordian skyline down; it’s not often you hear of things getting lower when so much of Greater Manchester just keeps building up.
Sharing the first proper glimpse at what they hope the redeveloped corner of the busy A6 main road will look like, many have been pleased to see familiar red brick and a traditional feel as opposed to more glass towers.
Writing a lengthy caption alongside the social media post, the OS state, “We are preparing a planning application for the St Christopher’s site in Stockport.
“Located at the prominent junction of Wellington Road South and Longshut Lane, the proposal aims to transform the prominent corner by demolishing the existing 10-storey 1970s office block to make way for a new residential community.
“The proposals are for a modern ‘mansion’ block with taller ceilings, more windows, better communal areas and private gardens.”
It remains to be seen at what price point these apartments will be available for.
Promising a total of 278 ‘new dwellings’, the scheme will crucially see the height of the existing plot lowered to fall in line with other neighbouring properties, as St Christopher’s House currently sits well above the nearby terraces and its metropolitan style does stand out against the surrounding brickwork.
The early reception to the proposed plans looks to be largely positive, too, with one user commenting online, “A very nice looking building with character. More of these please”; another went so far as to add, “These are the sort of modern buildings that will become grade listed.”
It’s also worth showcasing what exactly these blueprints look like when they’re brought to life, such as another development over in Longsight:
Render vs Reality. We recently completed our Daisy Bank scheme in Longsight Manchester for 72 new homes. The scheme takes contextual references from Dalton Ellis Hall & Victoria Park Christian Fellowship in the adjacent conservation area.@createstreets@archi_tradition… pic.twitter.com/DasRUtaylh
Safe to say that seeing what businesses trying to regenerate boroughs actually deliver compared to their initial mock-ups is always useful.
The award-winning firm goes on to add that “the building will be deliberately stepped back from the pavement to create a planted tree-lined avenue”, which will also revolve around a central courtyard and residents’ gardens, with ground-floor flats benefitting from private patios.
CGIs of shared communal roof terraces also give the designs that added modern look, with few other places in the vicinity offering this kind of space. It could be a welcome addition to the region that is already going through plenty of change at the minute.
Another big construction scheme is the one being carried out by Capital and Centric over the new Weir Mill district, which could be transformational for the town centre.
Internet signals reportedly ‘100x faster on the moon’ than on some UK trains
Danny Jones
Yes, you read that right: according to a recent study, internet signals on some UK trains are currently estimated to be 100x slower than they would be on… wait for it: the actual MOON.
Give us strength – and by that we mean signal strength.
As per new analysis carried out by Good Business Travel (GBT), research into some of the worst-connected train routes across Great Britain has delivered a rather depressing evaluation of our telecommunications systems and railways.
While some may certainly be better than others, it’s fair to say that we’ve all been there; you’re trying to have a call or use even a crumb of your data on a train before you ultimately give up and start arbitrarily looking through your photo library.
Put a man on the moon ✅ Cure diseases ✅
Get wifi on a fucking train. ABSOLUTELY NOT. NOOOO WAYYYYYY.
As damning and hyperbolic a claim as it might sound, GBT have indeed found that when compared against Ofcom’s benchmark for reliable internet performance (5Mbit/s), not a single train journey consistently meets the regulator’s standard.
Anyone who’s ever done Manchester to London and vice versa will know all too well how frustrating it can be to get a steady signal during your journey.
Never mind, eh? You know, they’re only two of the most modern and digitally-driven cities in the entire country – foolish of us to expect the key North-South link would carry over to internet connection.
Regarding train WiFi, hit and miss is putting it mildly, and even if you’re lucky enough to be on one that actually has a decent signal, it’s only a matter of time before the carriages fill up and throttle everyone’s connection, and it becomes patchy at best.
In what might be one of the slightest consolations ever, you’ll be glad to hear the LDN-MCR speeds are only the seventh worst in the nation, managing just 16% when it came to the average mobile network ‘Good Performance’ by Ofcom standards. You can see the unwanted top 10 leaderboard in full below.
The worst UK train journeys for mobile connectivity
Rank
Route
Average mobile network Good Performance (Ofcom)
1
Basingstoke to Coventry
6%
2
Sheffield to Doncaster
12%
3
Taunton to Leeds
13%
4
London to Edinburgh
14%
5
London to East Midlands Parkway
14%
6
Bedford to London St Pancras Peak
15%
7
London to Manchester
16%
8
London to Glasgow
18%
9
London to Plymouth
24%
10
London to Bournemouth
25%
Put simply, a staggering number of domestic train journeys fail the litmus test for what would be considered even a decent connection.
It’s got to the point now that there are even people starting nationwide campaigns to help generate awareness around upgrading telecoms infrastructure across the UK, with trains being one of the biggest challenges in this country.
Speaking on the report, Good Business Travel’s Client Experience Director, Natasha Inglis, said in a statement: “Millions of people travel by train every week expecting to work, stream, message friends or simply stay connected.
“Instead, they’re met with frozen video calls, emails that won’t send and endless buffering. While improvements to Britain’s rail connectivity have been promised by the government, passengers still have to deal with unreliable coverage every day. There are a few tricks that can help in the meantime.
“Many people don’t realise that sitting on the side of the train facing nearby towns or major roads can improve your signal because you’re closer to mobile masts. It’s also worth switching your phone to 4G instead of allowing it to constantly search for weak 5G signals, which often makes connectivity even less reliable on moving trains.”
But hey, things are slowly getting better if reports are to be believed, with satellite-enabled mobile services gradually being rolled out, meaning traditional ‘deadzones’/signal blackspots may not be as big of a problem as they once were. Touch wood.
For now, we’re just going to keep making sure we’ve got a decent book with us and enjoy taking a break from endless screentime.
Georgina Pellant -
7th September 2022 
