DOES Manchester need another mini-festival.? Definitely when it looks as promising as The Shebeen, set for the Green Quarter on Saturday, May 2.
The festival will be a multi venue event with each unique location (all in the Green Quarter) offering street food (naturally), a beer festival, comedy, a carnival party, art installations, live acoustic acts and much more music.
It’s a prototype for a unique sounding community project that has grown out of a Winter Beer Festival organised by Blackjack Brewery, Shebeen Events and GRUB. It’s called Keystone, brainchild of the above outfits, who are seeking funding via a Kickstarter campaign.
Crowdfunding via the Kickstarter website is having some success for indie food operators. Witness Chester restaurant Sticky Walnut reaching its £100,000 target in 30 days last year, in a bid to open a sister restaurant, Burnt Truffle.
With three days to go (Thurs, Feb 26) £6.685 had been pledged towards Keystone’s £11,000 goal. Follow via this link.
Keystone is intended to be a flexible events space housed in a Green Quarter railway arch, designed to support Manchester's best independent music, comedy and arts promoters while providing visitors with top quality food and drinks provided by innovative operators.
The food and drink offering will share the community, non-corporate ethos. Expect one of Manchester's best stocked real ale and craft beer bars sourced from Manchester’s expanding range of micro-breweries. Alongside there’ll be an ever revolving stable of street food traders and pop-up chefs from up and down the UK. Menus, especially at a monthly food market might feature Polish pierogi, Taiwanese bao, Indian dosa, Algerian patisserie, Colombian empanadas, Spanish tapas.
@GRUBMCR is a a new street food events company recently formed by Jason Bailey, while @ShebeenUK events driving force Jon Hartley launched Altrincham Market House bar Jack In The Box in conjunction with Rob Hamilton’s brewery @Blackjackbeers.
