MANCHESTER is the new London.
Bartenders are expected to know 200 cocktails off the bat; establish eye contact with you within five seconds of you walking in; serve you within 60 seconds; and give you your change within 30. Sounds knackering.
London lost its cool when it sold its soul (and all of its property) to Russians, Sheikhs, Buy-To-Letters and Goldman Sachs employees called Tim.
We know it, they know it, creative-types know it, anyone that earns under a six figure salary knows it, even George fucking Osborne knows it. And this lot certainly know it.
Be At One - the speedy London cocktail bar chain - are the latest in a long-line of London-based bar and restaurants brands (we announced the arrival of Comptoir Libanais' all of three seconds ago) looking to set up a Northern outpost in Manchester in preparation for the time when the capital finally eats itself up and farts itself back out. In about two years time.
If their licence is approved, Be At One will open in former-Circle Club site in the ginnel at the back of Barton Arcade (just off St Ann's Square).
Former-Circle Club - Barton Arcade
Be At One
The group run 24 hugely-popular cocktail bars darn sarf (none futher oop north than Oxford), including sites in Covent Garden, Soho, Shoreditch, Reading, Bristol and Brighton.
Be At One - with its thumping music, shouty-crowd, chirpy staff and cheap happy hour boozing - prides itself on a lack of pretence and all that 'mixologist' wankery; though bartenders are expected to know 200 cocktails off the bat; establish eye contact with you within five second of you walking in; serve you within 60 seconds; and give you your change within 30. Sounds knackering.
Started in Battersea in 1998 by three bartender pals trained at TGI Fridays (the cocktail gaff of the era - Living Ventures kingpin Tim Bacon trained here too), scraped together £60,000 and probably watched too much Tom Cruise in Cocktail, Be At One is now one of the UK's leading cocktail bar chains with an annual turnover of over £10m.
Private equity firm Piper bought a third of the business in 2011 for £8m.
