New live music bar opening in Manchester for bourbon, blues and barbecue

A new bar is coming to Manchester this May, bringing a flavour of the Deep South to the city and offering live music seven nights a week.

The two-storey Blues Kitchen Manchester comprises of a restaurant and bar on the ground floor and a stunning concert hall on the first floor. 

The concert hall will also open temporarily for Friday and Saturdays from the 20th May for seated entertainment experiences, until the 21st June (subject to further guidelines) when the hall will welcome guests for standing gigs and club nights. 

The team behind popular London venues XOYO and Jazz Café will launch the music venue, club, bar and restaurant, which celebrates their life-long affair with blues music alongside a passion for rare bourbon and obsession with Southern barbecue food. 

An admiration for Manchester’s buzzing music scene cemented the city as their next destination for The Blues Kitchen, which has existing locations in Camden, Shoreditch and Brixton. 

This will be their first venue outside of London, and their largest to date.

The Blues Kitchen will occupy 13 Quay Street, a two-storey site originally built to house a Victorian Eye Hospital. 

The site is currently undergoing renovations with the team working to restore some of its original features as well as install new additions. 

With the sounds, smells, styles and tastes of Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas on offer, owners say guests will be transported to the Deep South. 

Expect a gospel roof, constructed with reclaimed 19th century tin plates from a derelict church in Manhattan, as well as a stained-glass ceiling, fashioned with the original stained-glass windows from Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital in New Jersey, where one of the true blues greats, Woody Guthrie, once resided. 

An original 1920s Air Stream Caravan is also being revamped and kitted out to create the ultimate retro private party space.

The restaurant and bar, located on the ground floor, will specialise in serving up American soul food and rare and vintage bourbon. 

Open all day for brunch, lunch, supper and dessert, its Southern inspired menu features barbecue classics and proper comfort food – think stacked-up burgers, creamy mac n cheese, buffalo hot wings and succulent smoky ribs.

The bar will boast over 80 bourbons and a dedicated menu of cocktails, beers, wine and spirits, with whiskeys from around the world.

There will also be live music every day of the week on their ground floor, from 1930s Delta blues, gritty Southern soul, funk, acoustic, rock n roll and roots music.

A concert hall holding up to 500 guests will occupy the first floor, with international headliners as well as in-house gigs and club nights with Manchester based resident musicians and DJs.  

“We’ve been looking for the perfect site in Manchester for years and have finally found it,” said Steve Ball, CEO of The Columbo Group, which owns Blues Kitchen.

“We’ve taken a great deal of pleasure in restoring the building over the past year, and we’ve managed to get hold of some incredible vintage features from the States so it’s really going to be quite something. 

“We’re really excited to reveal it all soon along with our entertainment programme once restrictions have lifted.”

The Blues Kitchen Manchester will open on the 20th May 2021. Sign up to theblueskitchen.com/manchester for exclusive access to the live music programme and restaurant bookings.