JULY 15. Put it in your diary as the day that moribund Deansgate Mews is magicked into B.EAT Street – an alternative food, booze and art universe, complete with Godzilla murals and a seven metre long T-Rex just for starters.
This permanent Great Northern Warehouse successor to the B.EAT Street boys’ hugely popular Friday Food Fight pop-up has been a long time in gestation but that seems only to have fired up the leftfield imagination of co-hosts Chris Legh, Lyndon Higginson and Bart Murphy.
The teasing trio have finally named the seven street food traders who'll occupy the micro-diners serving 150 covers on the split-level, heated all-weather terrace with a rooftop sun deck and outdoor grill. Legh describes it as an “incubator for street food talent”, promising guest traders for a reprise of Friday Food Fight the last Friday of each month. The seven regulars are:
Big Grillie Style: "Best loaded grilled cheese sandwiches this side of Cincinnati or Chicago" apparently.
Bart’s Dog Kart: Dogs, nachos, loud Hawaian shirts.
Bali Beach Hut: Indonesian street food from family recipes.
Eat New York: Salt beef, bagels, loaded shakes that are a bite out of the Big Apple
Indian Street Canteen: South Indian stuff from the savvy folk who brought you Chaat Cart.
Lekker: Dutch diner with their own sweet-toothed handle on pancakes
Jerk: Charcoal-fired Jamaican barbecue.
Milk of Burgundy, a wine bar with no pretensions (and coffee, too). Whether it’s name comes from Shakespeare’s King Lear or an outré Chicago performance space TOM is not sure. We do know that...
Kozel Bar comes from the Czech name for billy-goat (koza). The brewery in Velké Popovice providing acclaimed beer (the Dark is highly recommended) has had a live well-groomed goat as its mascot since the 19th century. We don’t expect it to come over for the launch, but we do expect it to be rammed! There should be plenty of Lucky Cats, though, at...
Lucky Lucky, which is flagged up as “a sleazy, neon-lit nod to Tokyo dive bars”. This is where the cats, Japanese film posters and Godzilla murals enter the scheme of things. Also prepare for a huge gong to summon us all to wacky end cocktails.
The art contribution to the 9,000 sq ft development looks equally wacky with outdoor and indoor installations plus the Brickhouse Gallery, curated by local artist Harrison Edwards.
Follow @beatstreetmcr to catch up with the latest developments during the three-week countdown to launch.
Oh, and that seven metre long T-Rex? No, we’ve no idea where that’s going. Watch this space.