Hatch

Hatch is an exciting new retail and leisure pop up space and is located under the Mancunian Way on Oxford Road. A place to eat, drink and shop. Manchester’s award winning food, drink and retail destination. A place to shop, eat and drink, 7 days a week with over 30 independent traders.

A brightly coloured jumble of shipping containers jutting out from below the Mancunian Way is the unlikely setting for one of the city's liveliest food and drink venues. Launched in December 2017 with site works taking all of two weeks, Hatch houses 30 independent traders specialising in everything from Hawaiian street food to halloumi, and craft beers to bubble waffles. As well as food and drink there is a barber, Manchester's first drop-off sneaker and handbag cleaning boutique, jewellery shops, streetwear specialist Rigged Out and a DJ gym offering music production courses.

Takk espresso bar and Öl nano brewery are inside containers stacked on top of one another, with indoor seating as well as balconies shielded from the traffic that thunders overhead. Beer Box, serving a selection of beers from independent craft brewers across the world, also has its own residence with cast-off sofas and comfy armchairs. Number 8, with a roof terrace, mixes wacky cocktails, and Electric Box combines craft beers with arcade games and darts.

Puns are de rigueur at the food units - Slurp, Crackle and Pop has a 75% vegan menu; Parmogeddon grills chicken with béchamel; and Herbivorous serves dinosaur chips (triple-cooked and loaded with pulled BBQ jackfruit and chipotle mayo). Hanoi 75 has converted a 1999 double-decker bus into a Vietnamese kitchen to make the typical banh mi, South East Asian filled baguettes, with enticing names like norti porki and pho real.

The traders come and go, but Hatch makes sure that no two offerings are too similar, and that menus are in tune with the season. The action takes place around a series of linked courtyards with tables and seating, with a stage surrounded by stripy deckchairs, for pop-up films and other events. Until recently the underside of the flyover was one of Manchester's least hospitable places, but now it is like being on holiday.