A couple of years ago I was persuaded to make my debut in attempting an escape room with my pals Clare, Hayley and Lottie, the venue being located down Port Street buried deep in the Northern Quarter. My first sighting of this concept was on the Crystal Maze TV programme in the early 1990’s which was very popular with hosts including Richard O’Brien (Rocky Horror Show) and Ed Tudor-Pole (lead singer of punk band Tenpole Tudor). It then evolved in 2003 into physical locations across the world, totalling 50,000 by 2019.
The Crystal Maze. Image Credit justwatch.com
It is based around a team using mental agility to solve clues and puzzles to ensure you can escape the room (or rooms) within a specified time limit. In our instance it was an interesting dynamic to watch four project managers and their different approaches, a couple were in the hyper harum-scarum camp and the remaining two in the considered analytical mould (myself contained in the latter more horizontal category!). The synergy coalesced and everyone wholly contributed to enable us to make our exit in time to head to the nearest pub for an after action review!
Further down the road you will find the Port Street Beer House which does exactly what it says on the tin with a rotation of 18 keg and 7 craft beer lines. They opened their doors initially in 2011 and were the forerunners of the craft beer pubs that now proliferate widely across Manchester. They have a compact bar area downstairs with a function room upstairs and outdoor seating available for those sunny evenings.
They stage ‘meet the brewer’ sessions, one of which I inadvertently witnessed, where they ran through the merits and tasting notes of each beverage on sale. They also introduced the innovative concept of the Indy Man Beer Con, which was a four day festival and reportedly the first of its kind across the country specifically for the craft beer trade. The successful events ran for eight years being before stalled by the pandemic.
Port Street Beer House. Image Credit pubgallery.co.uk
On the corner of Port Street and Great Ancoats Street a remarkable discovery was made in 2016 when preparations were being made to build a 13 storey skyscraper. Builders were astonished to find an ancient underground pub, complete with untouched brandy bottles and personalised crockery emblazoned with the name of the former landlord Thomas Evans. He owned the Astley Arms pub in 1821 which was eventually demolished in 1986.
Next door to the Beer House is Manchester Stage and Radio which is located within a 200 year old four storey warehouse, which is so synonymous with many other venues in the Northern Quarter. I have just discovered it has a long and illustrious history with the site being the city’s oldest nightlife venue. It originally opened its doors straight after World War 2 in 1946 and was a renowned jazz venue for many years led by renowned promoter Eric Scriven. It was named Club 43 after its address of 43 Port Street and luminaries such as Miles Davis, Ronnie Scott and Ella Fitzgerald graced the stage there.
An old flyer for Club 43, probably dated early 1960’s. Image Credit crj-online.org
Fast forward half a century to 1998 and at an ‘In the City’ showcase Muse and Coldplay both played, and the rumour goes that the latter were scouted by the Universal Records representative Debs Wild at that very show, thus subsequently signing their first professional recording contract. It was then for a spell a salsa dancing location trading as Cuba Café. In 2016 it morphed into its current iteration and three years later it moved under new ownership, and they developed it into a specialist electronic dance venue.
They have an outdoor space and upon entering you have a jazz influenced ground floor bar and upstairs is the Attic with seating and table service which can be hired out for functions. They have also converted the downstairs space into a dimly lit nightclub with a capacity of 150 and an accompanying licence until the post witching hour of 4am.
They have greatly improved the sound and acoustics by subtle but effective changes such as repositioning the booth. The booth is also adaptable to allow it to collapse so allowing bands to play. The initial launch involved CROP Radio undertaking an epic 15-hour live stream, I am sure punters needed some kip after that one!
On one of my sporadic visits to the establishment I discovered my attendance was on one of the live music nights and a chap called Steve Johnson was playing in a corner of the main bar.