Halfway down Deansgate opposite the John Rylands Library you will Manchester Box Deansgate. Back in 1986 on that particular spot on the corner of Brazennose Street there was an all glass building erected which housed amongst others many residents of the legal profession. That structure was subsequently demolished in 2017 and in 2020 a new building replaced it and became known as One Two Five Deansgate and they endeavoured to encapsulate Manchester’s industrial heritage with a terracotta style design.
The Box. Image Credit www.tripadvisor.co.uk
The pub sits on the ground floor of the building, and its name derives images in my scattergun brain of the current Gary Lineker fronted The Box TV game show. Alternatively, it also sparks thoughts of Cube which was a cult 1997 Canadian sci-fi/horror movie with a high body count where a disparate group of people with different sets of skills needed to work together to try and navigate several devious challenges and escape the cube.
Thankfully though it is neither of those two scenarios and is in fact primarily a sports bar with thirty five TV screens dotted around and the obligatory unhealthy snacks are served whilst you are watching the match. There are outside tables at the front which I have resided in on sunny days, and they also have shuttle boards and dart boards on site. The business is run by Arc Inspirations who also own the Banyan Bar & Kitchen and Manahatta brands. The Manchester Box site was an extension of the three original branches in Leeds and Liverpool.
Cube Promo. Image Credit collider.com
They stage live music every week from Thursday through to Sunday with the first night being classed as Bandeoke which consists of a karaoke but with a twist of a live band providing the musical background. On a Friday they concentrate of music with an Irish hue and on one of my visits I saw a chap called Drew Palmer performing. He is a locally based artist who has been on the circuit for around fifteen years and for a considerable spell was a resident artist at the famous Cavern Club in Liverpool. He is currently on a tour around Scotland with Kyle Falconer of the View including a date at the Dreadnought venue in ‘Bathgate No More’!
Continuing the Gaelic theme, I shall then take you further down Deansgate and a left turn into Oxford Road brings you to Manchester Katie O’Briens. The building at 23 Peter Street has an interesting lineage rolling back to its original incarnation as the Grand Theatre in 1883. It than had spells as a music hall, cinema and for several decades as the Fourth Church of Christ’s Scientists.
Around the turn of the 21st century it morphed into the Life Café cocktail bar and was at that stage positioned between Squares and Brannigans (latterly Albert Schloss). Intimate gigs took place here from the likes of Beautiful South, The (Beautiful!) Corrs, Stereophonics, Fun Lovin Criminals and Alanis Morrissette. They also had a venue downstairs called the Late Room and though I never had the opportunity to visit either, I do recall Uncle George telling me about a solo trip he undertook there to see British Sea Power in 2003.
Katie O’Briens. Image Credit www.msn.com
It then had periods as the Chicago Rock Café and the Sakana Pan Asian restaurant before in 2018 opening up an unauthorised Peaky Blinders 1920s style theme bar based on the fact that a proportion of the scenes for the TV series had been filmed in the city. Within there they also opened a dim sum restaurant linked with Ocean Treasure who have their original site within the Manchester 235 Casino located close by.
I think I only visited the once before Peaky closed its doors for the final time earlier this year before it swiftly reopened under its current moniker and has been designed as a large traditional Irish bar room layout. On my one attendance thus far on 08/05/26 I saw a Salford based artist called Joe Knowles. He is also the resident guitarist in an enterprise called ‘I Like Singing’ who encourage and develop local choirs. Additionally, he is the driving force behind a four-piece dream pop band called Vala who have performed live on Radio 2 and have also worked with Gordon Raphael, who produced the seminal Strokes debut album ‘Is This It’.