Northern Quarter favourite Home Sweet Home has announced it will close its doors for good after one final service on Saturday.
The popular brunch and burger restaurant – beloved for its cakes, pancakes and milkshakes – has been feeding loyal fans on Edge Street for over a decade, but now bosses say it’s time for them to ‘move forward’ with ‘new projects’ instead.
Sharing the news of the eatery’s closure in a heartfelt post on social media on Thursday night, bosses wrote: “After 10yrs of milkshakes, cheeseburger toasties, a million breakfasts and a whole bunch of happy tummies sadly guys it’s time for us to go.
Saying, unequivocally, that ‘it sucks’, they continued: “sadly HomeSweet just has to float away into the chocolate river.”
Image: Home Sweet Home
“It’s been the most wonderful of times and we will miss soothing your hangovers and satisfying your cravings. Drop in, say goodbye and get your final fix.”
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The American comfort food joint first opened on Edge Street in the Northern Quarter in 2012, followed by a second site at the Great Northern Warehouse in 2015, which closed in 2019.
Beautiful Drinks, the company behind Home Sweet Home, also owns a number of other restaurants in the city including burger bar Almost Famous, Tex Mex eatery Lust Luck Liquor and Burn.
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In recent years, it has also closed its ‘hidden’ cocktail bar Convenience Store, which sat in the same building as Almost Famous and Lust Luck since 2017, having previously been known as tiki bar Keko’s.
Comments poured in from Home Sweet Home fans last night following the announcement, with one person saying: “End of an era! Me and @maguire40 lived round the corner when you opened and for your first 5 years. We were major fans of your cheeseburger toasties and milkshakes! Kept me fuelled when I was preggo with the twins. You’ll be missed.”
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Another person added: “Very sad news. Many brunches, lunches and cakes have been consumed on your premises!”
A third commented: “Absolutely gutted to read this. Home sweet home became the place I’d reunite with my uni friends and catch up over lovely food from lovely people. I will miss this so very much”
The cheeseburger toastie will have a place in my heart forever
The full post read: “Bittersweeet… After 10yrs of milkshakes, cheeseburger toasties, a million breakfasts and a whole bunch of happy tummies sadly guys it’s time for us to go. I know it sucks right, your go to place for fun and friends and a warm glow will be no more.
“HomeSweet will close its doors forevers after service on Saturday 23rd July.
“We’re moving forward with exciting new projects and sadly HomeSweet just has to float away in to the chocolate river. It’s been the most wonderful of times and we will miss soothing your hangovers and satisfying your cravings. Drop in, say goodbye and get your final fix.
Home Sweet Home will close its doors for one last time following its final service on Saturday 23 July. It is not yet clear what new projects Beautiful Drinks is working on next.
Feature image – Home Sweet Home
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Luxury Manchester gym Blok confirms permanent closure after weeks of uncertainty
Daisy Jackson
Blok Manchester has announced its permanent closure, weeks after the doors to the premium fitness facility mysteriously closed.
Around a fortnight ago, members began to arrive to their classes to find the gym on Ducie Street locked up and a forfeiture notice on the door – but at the time, Blok said that it was fighting to reopen.
Sadly, in an email sent to members today, its founder has confirmed that the studio is now permanently closed.
Blok – which has several very successful sites down in London – said that its relationship with its landlord has ‘broken down to a point where trust has been lost’.
The gym wrote that it’s been left with ‘no workable way forward’.
They said: “BLOK Manchester was a space built by our loyal and dedicated community. Whether you joined us for one class or one hundred, we are deeply grateful. You helped create something genuinely special in an incredible city.”
In the immediate future, they said they’ll be supporting the team of fantastic trainers who worked here, as well as looking after members.
Members will be contacted within a few hours with options and refunds owed.
Blok Manchester has announced its permanent closure. Credit: The Manc Group
CEO and founder Ed Stanbury said: “While this marks the end of a chapter, we don’t see it as the end of our story in Manchester. We’re already speaking with developers about potential future sites and remain committed to returning to the city when the time is right.
“Thank you for being part of our story so far. Let’s shape the future of wellness. The mission continues.”
Commenting on Blok’s Instagram post – its first in almost a fortnight – people have been sharing their sadness at the closure of its Manchester site.
One person wrote: “beautiful space, beautiful staff and beautiful community.”
Another said: “Sending love to all the instructors !! :(((( gutted”
Someone else commented: “THE BEST CLASSES. I’m gutted.”
‘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…
Georgina Pellant -
8th July 2022 
