Friday Food Fight Plans For Upper Campfield Market

Call it what you will, but this dirty, DIY, trash, street food, scran-out-the-back-of-a-van pick it up and plonk it anywhere you like guv’nor foodie trend has really grown wings in the past year or so.

"That's the beauty of events like Friday Food Fight. Get together a gang of fantastic cooks and let them show off. Throw in exciting drinks and great DJs and you've got a perfect night."

You can barely walk through Manchester without tripping over some former home cook or frustrated graduate selling kidney kebabs out of the boot of a car. I can see two such street food vendors in Spinningfields from the Confidential window as I type this (Mumma Schnitzel is a good'un).

Of course, street food is nothing new. Homer famously used to pop out for Leon’s Legumes while thrashing out The Illiad. There’s been the same bloke in a van pulling meat patties from a fag-yellow brine puddle outside Grimsby’s Blundell Park for a quarter of a century now. Think he’s called Gary.

Either way, street food has been around since we first cobbled together a cart (three weeks after the wheel was invented) – the thing is – street food has been sexed up, and more importantly, it's come good. In some cases excellent.

Will Evans, co-founder of B.Eat Street

Will Evans is one-half of B.Eat Street (the other-half being Chris Legh, currently bar consultant at Parklife), the Manchester-based duo behind Friday Food Fight, a new 12-week series of events beginning on Friday 7 March and running for twelve consecutive Fridays.

Held within the wonderfully cavernous late-1870s Victorian Upper Campfield market hall on Deansgate (that big old grey one across from the Beetham Tower... behind Dimitris and Don Marcos... on Liverpool Road... yeah that's the one), the Friday Food Fight will be bring around ten vendors in each week accompanied by bars and DJs for 'one big turbo-charged food court'.

Among the bigger names confirmed are Nutters, Solita, Lucha Libre, Umezsushi, Ning, Reds True BBQ and Yang Sing who'll be battling out amongst other smaller-scale vendors like Diamond Dogs, Bobbys Bangers, Piggy Smalls and the Hip Hop Chip Shop - which is such a ruddy great name it makes us want to eat there for every meal of every day for the rest of time.

Friday Food Fight line-up here.

Upper Campfield market hall

So Will, Friday Food Fight, what's the big idea?

The idea is that we bring in around ten vendors each Friday night to Upper Campfield, a mix of some of Manchester's finest like Yang Sing and Andrew Nutter and throw them in next to street vendors from vans and stalls, put them all on a level playing field and get them cooking the food they do best. It's great because it can act as a springboard for those more amateur cooks to come in and cook next to some of Manchester's best.

Along one wall of the hall there'll be all the food vendors, along the other will be bars dishing out great craft beers, ciders and some cocktails. If we're pushing for great food we want the drinks to match that. We'll also be looking to pull in some drinks brands for one-offs. Then we'll have DJs providing the soundtrack, the guys from Drop The Mustard, Funkademia, Juicy and Krysko all have slots. We may even get a band in. We want the food to be centre stage though, shout about the food in Manchester and give vendors the chance to show off.

Where'd you pull the idea from?

When I was working for the beer Duval I'd see all of these food events going off in London like Street Feast at Hawker House, the Truck Stop at Canary Wharf was just insane. These were very forward thinking events and they were packed.

I started working for Cave Beers in the North West and was looking to tie those craft beers into that kind of event, turned out a mate of mine, Chris Legh, wanted to do a very similar thing. He's been involved in a number of pop-ups. We threw our ideas together and went to Asif and Jodie from the Castlefield Market who had put together the Victorian Market in Upper Campfield market over Christmas.

We were very keen to get in that building, it's such a great space, so luckily they got on board and we've all put this together. We can't wait to get people inside that building, I walked past it everyday for two years and had no idea how amazing it was.

FFF (image courtesy of Abigail Melissa Stein)

Who are B.Eat Street?

That's me and Chris. We want the Friday Food Fight to be its own thing, but we've got more ideas and more events we want to do so B.Eat Street is the banner they'll fall under. Friday Food Fights is B.Eat Street's debut event in partnership with the Castlefield Market.

Will the vendors be different every week?

The idea is that no one vendor will do more than half the events, apart from Sugar Rush doing the desserts. We want to switch it up so that if you come the next week it's different to the previous week. But we also don't want you to come one week, love a particular vendor then never see them again.

So if you come one week and love the sushi by Umezsushi, then you'll be able to come back and try more from them in a couple of weeks. It's finding that balance between keeping it fresh but making sure the most popular food is still going to be there.

Why only twelve weeks?

Twelve weeks will carry us through until the end of May and we need to see how the events take off. We are looking at the possibility of staging autumn or winter events though, maybe even a Christmas series.

Upper Campfield

How late will the events finish?

We’ve purposefully kept the timings down to an 11pm finish. The idea is to keep people in the city after work. We envisage that we’ll have two rotations on a Friday night, those that come straight after work at 5pm until 8'ish, then the second wave will be those that are beginning a night out, so will come between 8pm and 11pm. We want to bring people out in Manchester and keep them out to hit the bars. At 11pm we turn the gas, pumps and music off and set you off into the wild.

Let's talk price and portions...

We'd like you to dabble in a few vendors so we're trying to keep portions down to about three quarters of a normal meal size at around the £5 to £6 mark. We're also asking the vendors to put on smaller bites at £2 to £3. The idea is that you try a whole bunch of different foods from different vendors, try some new drinks and have a great time with your mates.

...and the vendors keep the proceeds?

Apart from a small nominal fee to pay for the venue, DJs, lighting, marketing and the like, the vendors will keep everything they make. It's a great opportunity for them.

Victorian Christmas market at Upper Campfield

How many people can you fit in? And do we need tickets?

We're allowed 499 people in the hall but they'll be coming and going so we expect the footfall to be higher. We're not ticketing it. We want anyone to be able to come down as and when they please. Just come as you are. There is a guaranteed entry list for a few family and friends but there's nothing VIP about it. Just come down and get eating.

Nervous?

I actually can't wait to get cracking on opening night. Be great to see the reactions to all of that under one roof. Being of a beer'y persuasion I'm looking forward to releasing these lesser known brands like the Hawaiian Kona beers on to people. I love food, but the beer side is one of the main reasons i became involved.

So what is your background?

I’ve been in drinks all my life. I moved here for Uni in '98, after that I had a bar called Hush in Preston for five years. Bit cliched next for an Irishman but I started working for Guinness and after that the Belgian beer Duval. That got me back into the craft beer scene, I wanted to do more of that so approached Cave Beers in London and said 'nobody is pushing your beer up here, so let me do it'. Luckily they did. Now you'll see beers like Kona and Paulaner across Manchester, mostly in the Northern Quarter. There’s still work to be done but we’re breaking in.

FFF (image courtesy of Abigail Melissa Stein)

Do you believe this dirty, trash, street, pop-up foodie thing will slow down?

It depends on your definition of street food. There will always be a need for casual dining done well. Solita for example, they do what you might call dirty street food but they put it together very well with quality ingredients in a restaurant environment. With anything that becomes popular there are certain people that will start doing it badly and they're the ones that will die out. But the ones that keep doing it well and pushing new things, the ones keeping it fresh, they'll keep going.

Social media certainly helps. Twitter and street food feed off each other. Trends and tastes can be picked up on very quickly and adapted to on the spot. Street food doesn't have to be what you instantly think of, it's not just burgers, we're bringing in chefs like Andrew Nutter who turn out beautiful food and asking them to produce street food. They love it because it gives them the chance to do something different, try things out, quick and casual. That's the beauty of events like Friday Food Fight. Get together a gang of fantastic cooks and let them show off. Throw in exciting drinks and great DJs and you've got a perfect night.

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