Costa Coffee is well and truly warming up for winter after unveiling three new limited edition drinks to its festive food and drinks range.
The “countdown to Christmas is on” at Costa.
After over a week of teasing the new editions to this year’s winter menu, the popular coffee shop chain has finally made the announcement this morning that it has “teamed up with all your festive favourites” to bring a trio of indulgent hot drinks to stores nationwide at the start of next month.
The Terry’s Chocolate Orange Hot Chocolate, the After Eight Hot Chocolate, and The Purple One Latte will all be available to try out from next Tuesday, and given this is one of the first times Costa has collaborated with some of the nation’s favourite festive chocolate treats, you can bet people are excited.
The announcement has already racked up thousands of interactions, shares and comments on all social platforms after just a few short hours since posting.
At Costa, Christmas isn’t cancelled! In fact, we’ve teamed up with all your festive favourites, to bring you the most wonderful range of the year ?? After Eight Hot Chocolate, ? Terry’s Chocolate Orange Hot Chocolate & The Purple One Latte ? pic.twitter.com/19GRvQAmlt
Luckily for fans of Costa’s Christmas drinks from previous years though, these three new indulgent offerings aren’t arriving in replacement of any usual festive favourites.
The chain also confirmed via Twitter this morning that the much-loved Black Forest Hot Chocolate, Gingerbread & Cream Latte, Irish Velvet Latte, Cinnamon Spiced Cappuccino, and Spiced Apple will all be returning to the Christmas menu this year.
The announcement of this new festive hot drink team up comes after Costa unveiled its festive food menu for 2020 a few weeks back, which sees lots of new items introduced and some fan-favourites return.
On the savoury side, this year’s new food range includes the Lobster Toastie, British Pork & Bramley Apple Sausage roll, British Turkey & The Trimmings Toastie, Brie, Maple Bacon & Cranberry Stonebaked Panini, Vegan Turkee, Cranberry & Stuffing Bloomer Toastie, and Pigs under Blankets Stonebaked Panini and Pigs & Blankets Mac and Cheese.
If you’re after something sweet, you can try out the new After Eight Muffin and Terry’s Chocolate Orange Muffin to accompany your hot chocolate.
Or try the new Vegan Lotus Biscoff Cheezecake, Vegan Father Christmas Gingerbread, the gluten-free Vegan Christmas Fruit Cake, the gluten-free Vegan Mince Tart, Rich Chocolate & Hazelnut Shimmer Cake, Jammin’ in the Chimney Cake, a range of Panettones, and so much more.
You can also take your pick of plenty of returning festive indulgences too.
Costa CoffeeCosta Coffee
Speaking on the unveiling of the new food menu, Cathy Port – Head of Food at Costa Coffee – said: “Christmas has always been such a magical time of year at Costa Coffee and we know that this year in particular, our customers are looking to us to make the festive period that extra bit more special.
“We’re incredibly proud to launch our 2020 limited edition Christmas food menu, which we believe is our best yet.
“It features so many iconic products, which we know our customers have raved about, but also brings in some phenomenal new innovations and partnerships to excite and delight returning and new customers. From the decadent Lobster Toastie to the Vegan Turkee, Cranberry & Stuffing Bloomer Toastie and the iconic new muffin collections, there’s something for everyone.”
Costa’s Christmas Food & Drinks menu will be available at branches nationwide from Tuesday 3rd November.
Brand new venue confirmed as the host of The Manchester 24 Hour Run Against Homelessness
Danny Jones
The magnificent Manchester 24 Hour Run Against Homelessness is back this year, and with the 2025 event fast approaching, they have announced arguably their biggest host venue yet, setting up in camp in a brand new food and drink hall.
Having housed the incredible charity gathering from Freight Island last year, it was always going to take some beating this time around, but somehow they’ve managed to.
The annual relay run in aid of Greater Manchester’s homeless community will be taking place at none other than the city centre’s recently unveiled House of Social, with the building’s wider student living quarters serving as the perfect fit for the initiative first thought up by university friends back in 2018.
Announced this week, House of Social will be teaming up with the wider First Street neighbourhood to look after the hordes of incredible runners this year.
Jamie Hills, Development Director at Ask Real Estate – who operate the ever-growing First St complex – said of volunteering as this year’s hosts: “First Street is thrilled to welcome and fuel the incredible runners of The Manchester 24 Hour Run Against Homelessness.
“As the city’s hotspot for community events and culture, we’re proud to be a place where community thrives, so we’re incredibly excited to support this important initiative. With our fantastic on-site amenities like House of Social, we’re ready to keep those participating powered up and going strong!”
As for co-founder Tom Lewis, speaking to The Manc, he said: “We’re excited to return for our 7th edition, with Manchester being our flagship event.
“Through being hosted at House of Social in First Street, we’re hoping to make this year’s edition the best and biggest yet, aiming to raise £50,000 for the Greater Manchester Mayor’s Charity Scheme, ‘A Bed Every Night’.
“We’d love to see you all at the event, plus bring your friends and workplace to. There are paces for everyone, including walking laps.”
In November 2024, not only did the fundraising phenomenon mark its first-ever expansion with an inaugural event in Birmingham, but it also surpassed £50,000 here in Manchester alone, and is now set to make debuts in a trio of new cities.
Tom went on to add: “I couldn’t be more proud of what we’ve managed to accomplish as a team with starting up three more events across the country this year and expanding Manchester to a scale we couldn’t have dreamed of when we started out seven years ago.”
We here at The Manc Group have been helping The MCR 24 Run Against Homelessness for several years now, and have put in plenty of those 5k laps between ourselves, so you can bank on us being there to put in some more hard yards this November.
Even better still, we’ve already roped in our friends over at The Hoot to help out with the maiden 24 Hour Run Against Homelessness in Leeds, and we hope to see lots more of you chipping in across the North and beyond.
Here’s to helping rough sleepers find beds and get back on their feet all over the country.
The @mcr24hourrun is expanding in 2025 and is heading to Leeds for the first time. 🏃♂️
And they're not the only city making their debut this year either… 👊
Manchester restaurant to give out FREE katsu curries to people called ‘Kat’ or ‘Sue’
Emily Sergeant
In what is a small stroke of genius, a restaurant chain has decided to give out free katsu curries to anyone called ‘Kat’ or ‘Sue’.
Throughout September, award-winning restaurant chain Banana Tree – which has a Greater Manchester site down at Salford Quays – is shining the spotlight on its popular katsu creations, and as a clever way of celebrating National Katsu Day on 27 September has announced a pretty unique giveaway.
That’s right – the restaurant will be serving up katsu dishes to people called Kat, Sue, and every delicious variation of the names in between.
Anyone named Kat, Katie, Katherine, Sue, Suzy, Susan, Suzanne – or close enough to qualify, the list goes on – can head to their local Banana Tree restaurant, and all they’ll need to do is show proof of name and they can enjoy a free katsu dish of their choice, worth up to £16.75.
The chain’s kastu lineup includes three star dishes.
First there’s the much-loved Katsu Curry, as well as the all-new Katsu Burger, which is made from either a crispy chicken or veggie fillet, spicy mayo, puffed noodle crunch, and a drizzle of Katsu sauce tucked into a soft Shokupan bun with a side of salt n pepper chilli chips.
Then there’s also the intriguing newcomer, the Katsu Carbonara – which is described as being a daring East-meets-West mash-up and ‘unapologetically’ Banana Tree.
Banana Tree is giving away free katsu curries to people called ‘Kat’ or ‘Sue’ / Credit: Banana Tree
With each of these dishes usually priced around the £16 mark, the giveaway isn’t just a way of marking National Katsu Day, but it’s also a way to sample the some of the restaurant’s biggest crowd-pleasers entirely free of charge.
To avoid any confusion on who makes the cut, Banana Tree will reveal the full qualifying list of name variations on Instagram soon, so keep your eyes peeled.
“Our Katsu range is one of our proudest creations, so National Katsu Day felt like the perfect moment to have some fun with our fans,” a Banana Tree spokesperson said ahead of the giveaway.
The free katsu offer is available for four days only from Monday 22 to Thursday 25 September, and you just need to head to the Banana Tree website to sign up to the Big Flavour Club here.
Emily Sergeant -
27th October 2020 
