THE launch for Bunny Jackson’s, billed as the Deep South comes to First Street, was surprisingly short on bourbon-soaked old bluesmen and not a gumbo or jambalaya in sight. Cynics might baulk at yet another homage to a Mythical America, with all the down home trappings, yet the chutzpah of Lyndon Higginson and his cohorts, Mat Lake and Bart Murphy, is irresistible – as was the tide of free booze at the party.
This was the site that Liquor Store couldn’t make work for them, but New Orleans style juke joint Bunny’s brings with it the goodwill it won as a pop-up at B.Eat Street in the Great Northern.
It has taken just two weeks apparently to complete this new permanent home – perfecting the stressed ramshackle sharecropper chic demanded of a juke joint. Central to this is the corrugated iron bar and live music stage caged off by chain-link fencing. Oh and there’s a fairy-light festooned motor bike hung over the door.
Bourbon and cocktails are the drinks of choice – lot of the beers are those iconic but taste ‘iconic brands”. The food menu is simple and Southern with po’ boys sandwiches (£7.50), burgers (£7.50) and French dips (£8). It’s available until 9pm, after which punters are promised free hotdogs with drinks when the kitchen is closed, plus 10p wings on Wednesdays.
“We loved the original Bunny Jackson project and this is a great chance to pick it ip again,” said Lyndon. “Basically it’s all about the juke joints back in the day, these places from the Deep South of America where people would go and let their hair down. We’ve been in a few.”
Initially on Sundays and Mondays the bar will host live music ‘with a blues-tinged vibe’. Or you can make your own entertainment on the first floor, where there’s a pool table, beer pong and darts to play.
Lyndon, Mat and Bart also run Junkyard Golf Club, which has also relocated to First Street, where WOOD, The Gasworks Brew Bar, Indian Tiffin Room and The Laundrette are leading the charge.
None of them, though, have a back porch back story to match Bunny Jackson’s. According to the owners, it takes his name from “an 80-year-old man in New Orleans with one leg, one eye, no teeth and a harmonica, who used to run the old juke joints”. We’d take that guff with a pinch of baccy, mind.
Bunny Jackson’s Juke Joint, 1 Jack Rosenthal Street, Manchester, M15 4FN.
