Month: April 2024

Stockport Venue 2 – Rock Salt Deli and Cafe Bar

The Four Heatons are a suburb of Stockport and contain within Heaton Chapel, Heaton Norris, Heaton Mersey and Heaton Moor. The latter named also has an area attached called Moor Top which lies about half a mile away. Nearby lies Heaton Moor Golf Club which was opened to the public during Covid and was a regular walking route for us during that strange period.

Adjacent to the golf course is Mauldeth Hall, a Greek revival villa built in the 1830’s and is now the residence of the Consul General of the Peoples republic of China in Manchester. It lies just off Mauldeth Road which appears to the omnipresent road of the district. The whole Heatons area was originally badged under Salford before coming under the jurisdiction of Stockport in 1913.

Famous past or present residents include the Lord of the Rings actor Dominic Monaghan, tennis players Liam and Naomi Broady, crime author Val McDiermid and Mani from Stone Roses. I also recall cycling’s royal couple Laura and Jason Kenny using the area as a base when preparing for a recent Olympic Games.

Mani on stage. Image Credit NME.

Within the Moor Top catchment area on Heaton Moor Road there is a couple of Italian restaurants, an Indian, a Tapas bar, a Chinese takeaway and a decent chippy amongst others.  Not too far away from there is the West Heaton Bowling, Tennis and Squash Club which has comedy nights and has live music on the first Friday of every month in the 80-capacity function room, but I have never yet visited.

Back in Moor Top, there is the local branch of Martin’s bakery which serve reasonable pies. After an exceedingly fraught morning in and out of the local estate agents when confirming the purchase of our current property I recall rewarding myself with a large flapjack from the aforementioned bakery! Further down is the Nook Café Bar which has acoustic acts playing and I have visited the establishment several times but never in correlation to any live performers.

A further few steps away is the terrific art deco cinema the Savoy. It was opened in 1923 and is built in a striking Baroque style in red brick with white terracotta. In 2006 it announced its closure due to low attendances and was touted to be replaced by a Varsity bar, which would have been a complete travesty. Commendably the locals did not accept that scenario and a Save Our Savoy campaign was launched which then subsequently saved the day resulting in a refurbished building reopening in 2015.  

Savoy cinema. Image Credit manchestereveningnews.co.uk

We have now signed up as members and it is superbly run cinema and they have movies plus pizza nights alongside baby friendly movies and dementia screenings, the whole venue can also be hired out for weddings. Directly across the road you will find the Moor Top pub which is a handy location for summer drinks as they have a large beer garden.  

Further down is a Co-op supermarket which we walked to regularly during Covid though people did struggle with the one-way system concept deployed in the shop! During that period, we also dangerously discovered their own brand of Honey I’m Comb ice cream!

Just nearby to there lies the Stockport Rock Salt Deli and Café Bar which opened in the summer of 2016. They serve hot food and cakes and have a decent size beer garden that is a veritable sun trap. They also occasionally have live music on and on 20/10/2018 we saw an act there called Spider Mike King. He has been a true stalwart of the Manchester music scene for almost six decades and his initial inspiration to becoming a musician was a chance meeting with Jimi Hendrix when he played one of his two Stockport shows in the late 1960’s.

  

 Rock Salt Cafe. Image Credit useyourlocal.com

Manchester Venues 115 to 117

As cited in a previously blog, The Band on the Wall has recently been refurbished with a new site for gigs outside their main venue room, with an 80-person capacity. Thus, at the culmination of a gig I attended there recently we walked out into the Manchester Band on the Wall Bar and discovered a bonus band on the small stage called Black Cat Lion. I am assuming they only commenced playing when the band in the main room had finished their set.

Band on the Wall. Image Credit propermanchester.com

The last time I encountered an occurrence like that was when leaving Nottingham Rock City in the late 1990’s after watching a Spiritualised set to discover to my utter delight that the South London punks Snuff were in the middle of a thunderous set in a function room downstairs. That night I dived into the already fully functioning mosh pit and thoroughly enjoyed the half bonus gig and the standout was their cover of ‘I Think Were Alone Now’ with the vocals provided by a selected chap from the aforementioned pit!

Situated in a very old area of the Northern Quarter is Tariff St. I have also previously covered the bars and venues on this evocative ‘mill town’ thoroughfare, but I had never yet witnessed a gig at the Manchester Whiskey Jar Upstairs Bar, only having attended gigs in the downstairs space. The Whiskey Jar is housed in a Grade 1 listed textile mill, and it lives up to its name by having around 350 varieties of the hard stuff available, with representation from many continents.

Whiskey Jar bar. Image Credit creativetourist.com

On the same night of the above Band on the Wall gig I was navigating my route back to Manchester Piccadilly station for the late train home, and my attuned ears could hear music at ’100 yards’, much like Father Jack of Father Ted fame who could pick up the distinctive sound of a Sauvignon Blanc bottle at the same distance! Therefore, I had no choice but to undertake a quick detour into the Whiskey Bar to catch the last 1.5 songs of the Blues Kids set whilst still allowing enough time to enable myself to make the scheduled train without excessive scampering!

In November 2019 I attended at the last minute the Off the Record festival, an event for unsigned bands that takes place in a suite of venues in the Northern Quarter. I picked up my wristband from the hub venue of Gullivers about 6pm and decided to weave down Tib Street to my first venue. As I walked down I was distracted by a sign outside Manchester Matt & Phred’s.

Matt & Phred’s opened in its current format of a Jazz and Blues late night club in 2010 and holds live gigs 6 days a week. It has an appropriate low lit intimate setting with a 200 capacity and apparently provides fine cocktails and tasty pizzas. In its previous guise in 2007 Adele played two gigs there in a fortnight window and to have graced the stage there also are Rochdale’s Lisa Stansfield, Wynton Marsalis, Ed Harcourt, Mumford and Sons, Daniel Johnston and George Ezra.

Matt and Phreds. Image Credit DesignMyNight.com

Due to the genre of the music, I couldn’t see myself ever paying for and attending a gig there and had only once previously been in for a drink in an afternoon setting. However, returning to the previously mentioned sign outside which was providing an invite to attend a free early gig which happened to be at the exact point I was walking past.

Not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth I entered the establishment and found a side wall to lean on. The act on stage were called Courteous Thief and transpired to be a folk singer who was a fisherman’s son from North Wales. He had already by that stage picked up support slots with Turin Brakes, Tom Hingley, Mark Morris and John Otway.