National cocktail institution Be At One swings open the doors to its first Manchester bar in the Barton Arcade on Thursday 24 March. We pinned down co-founder Steven Locke for a natter.
IN 1997 three of TGI Friday’s finest bartenders, uneasy with the American chain’s increasing tilt towards food, packed it in and decided to go it alone. So off they popped to the bank. It didn’t go well…
First and foremost we’re a pretension-free bartender-driven party bar…
“They wouldn’t lend us the money, so the next day we all applied for car loans and credit cards, stumped up £60k between us and bought a knackered old Indian restaurant on Battersea Rise for £30k,” says Steve Locke, co-owner of Be At One.
Eighteen years later and Locke, alongside co-founders Leigh Miller and Rhys Oldfield, run one of the most successful cocktail institutions in the country with a turnover of almost £30m and 30 sites in major cities such as London, Cardiff, Bristol and now Manchester.
“It was hugely down to luck,” continues Locke, “Battersea Rise was just about to explode and we slipped in there at just the right time. It just went bonkers. To this day it’s still one of our busiest bars – it’s kind of banked us all the way through.”
Of course, the more time you invest the more luck you'll find you have, and years of seventeen hour shifts paid off. It's a commitment to the brand the trio still have in spades.
“Every single one of our bartenders go through nine weeks of training at a cost of £5000 each – as far as I know we’re the only bar that invests that much time and effort into their team.
L-R: Steve Locke, Leigh Miller and Rhys OldfieldBut in a city currently swimming in bars, how do they intend to appeal to cocktail rich Mancunia?
“First and foremost we’re a pretension-free bartender-driven bar. They host the party," says Locke. "Service-wise we want to accelerate the customer experience. We call it the 5-60-30 principle. We’ll acknowledge you within five seconds, take 60 seconds to make your drink and 30 seconds to return your change – it’s about getting you back to your night and your friends.”
Locke says Manchester has been a priority for Be At One from the outset (“ever since we took part in a cocktail flair competition in the mid-90s in Tim Bacon’s old place, JW Johnson’s”), but they didn’t want to rush an opening.
“Manchester has always been the major city outside London, but we only opened our first non-London site four years ago, so we needed time to build our confidence in the North.
"We started with Leeds last summer and Sheffield about a month ago. Now Leeds is pretty good but Sheffield is phenomenally busy.”
Be At One
The bar will occupy the former Circle Club siteSo with confidence built Locke and co. signed for the former Circle Club site in the ginnel round the back of Barton Arcade, just off St Ann's Square. It's an inconspicuous location, but much the better for it according to Locke.
“What we loved about the site was the element of discovery,” says Locke. “We want people to stumble across it or be told by their friends and think ‘oh my god, how long has this been here?
“We don’t go in for this secret door malarkey, but the idea of having a bar hidden around the corner really appealed to us.”
The launch of Be At One continues a food and drink renaissance for Deansgate’s Victorian shopping arcade, following the openings of popular indie coffee spot, Pot Kettle Black, Spanish tapas restaurant Lunya and the upcoming launch of the Solita Steakhouse in the summer.
“It's a great building with some fantastic Victorian features to work with,” says Locke, “there'd be no point us opening a bar in Manchester that looked like any other bar in Manchester."
"We're not looking to bring London up north, we want to become a Manchester institution in our own right.”
Be At One opens at Barton Arcade on Thursday 24 March.
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