THE PROBLEM with keeping your ear to the ground to learn of all the new happenings in the city centre, is that you’re likely to miss something quite brilliant manifesting itself closer to home in the suburbs.
"I wanted the Sip Club to feel like visiting your Great Aunt. She may be a little peculiar, sipping on her sherry in her armchair, but there's still a sense of ceremony and comfort."
This was the case with The Stretford Sip Club, a blossoming ‘living room with a license’ selling real ale and real coffee that, unbeknown to myself, had been fashioning itself as a ‘need to know’ bar venue for the last eight months - all within 100 yards of my doorstep.
Aumbry Head Chef and TV face Mary Ellen McTague is said to be a fan and it recently scooped CAMRA's (Campaign For Real Ale) Best Newcomer and Pub of the Season awards.
I first came across The Sip Club by looking up from my phone and spotted a few figures in an upstairs room having a merry old time.
Like most 'best kept secrets' in Manchester, The Sip Club is difficult to find. It's become the surbuban This'n'That café of yesteryear - heard of, but rarely seen.
Sit club
The three room bar and function space is surreptitiously located above a Trading Places estate agents, on the unassuming neighbourhood street, Barton Road. Nearby there's a Chinese chippy, a couple of newsagents, women heaving prams onto to buses and a few pitbull-wielding sorts that make you cross the road just in case. There's no neon signs, any signs really, and say I'm making excuses but you really would never know it was there.
"There were rumours that we were a swingers club," laughed Sip Club owner, Heather Garlick. "It must have been really awkward to find twee gingham table cloths and people having a nice sophisticated evening."
I meet Garlick on a late afternoon where she was taking advantage of the lull before The Sip Club's busy Wednesday evening to come.
The warm window glow of The Sip Club
Heather Garlick on the pull
Garlick is a young woman running this business solo, she comes across at times both assured and unassured. She plays with her hair as we chat and laughs when I suggest she may be the area's 'saving grace'.
"It was a New Year's resolution," she says chewing her hair.
"I had been travelling for a few years and was trying to make it as a travel writer. My father had wanted to set up a wine bar in his home town, so I made two resolutions: open up a bar in Stretford and buy my first pair of designer shoes - I've still not bought the shoes."
Entrance to The Sip Club
Garlick set the wheels in motion for The Sip Club late last year and unlike most New Year's resolutions managed to maintain her resolve long after January.
The Sip Club offers homespun supper clubs, gin tastings, live music and a home-from-home for people to have a natter.
"The plan was always to plough everything back into the community. It had to be circular - we also had to include cask ale, that was integral," said Garlick. "It didn't have to be perfect, but everything had to be sourced from Greater Manchester - maybe Cheshire too."
It's all local at The Sip Club, from the cider to the crisps. She stocks bottles from the Moss Cider press, an organisation which takes donated apples to make cider in the former Stagecoach bus depot site on Bowes Street. There's also the farmer from Dunham Massey, phased out by a big supermarket, who makes his own cider and delivers to Garlick weekly.
Cask ale on offer at The Sip Club
What of the food?
"We offer a Manchester platter in case people get hungry and need to soak up the alcohol," explained Garlick. "Houmous, chutney, cheese and pork pies."
She added: "Of course, I would love to expand to include a kitchen but I'd also have to go about finding a chef - I wouldn't know where to start. At present I offer homespun supper clubs: we've recently led a Palestinian one, a local Japenese lady is offering to host the next, then vegan, West Indian..."
Back bar
The Sip Club is an idea you can get behind. Locally minded, relaxed and low on price and pretension - unlike some independents close by in Chorlton.
Stretford has been feeling buzzy as a result. Before The Sip Club emerged, it was only local pubs and the crumbling Stretford Mall responsible for the community's social life. As we recently reported, in recent years the area has faded to grayscale.
I wondered whether it had always been the plan to keep a lid on The Sip Club.
"No I just didn't have a marketing budget," Garlick laughs. "The plan was to sell real ale in Stretford - it had to be here. I wouldn't have done it in Chorlton."
While it may not have been the intention, the no-marketing marketing plan seems to be working in the Sip Club's favour. Through word-of-mouth and social media alone, locals have begun to learn about The Sip Club. And people seem to enjoy the mystery.
Garlick says proudly: "People say it's just like their own living room. It's great to see by the end of the evening people not sitting at the same tables they started on. Stretford is a really interesting community, a community that talks to each other.
"I wanted The Sip Club to feel like visiting your Great Aunt. She may be a little peculiar, sipping on her sherry in her armchair, but there's still a sense of ceremony and comfort."
Like your Great Aunt's house?
Before meeting Heather, I stopped by The Sip Club on a Sunday afternoon to get a feel for the place. I grabbed a coffee (beans by Manchester's Coffee Circle) and people watched. There was a 'Made In M32' craft fair going on behind me, and Heather Garlick was working the room. It was full. I wondered how she was coping with it all.
"I'm taking a bouncer's course," she laughed nervously. "The Robin Hood pub has been closed for a week and I have had the odd character wonder in. It has kept me up at night, but I can't let fear stop me."
Enthused by The Sip Club, I asked Heather Garlick about future plans, hinting that a Sunday lunch offering would pull in some more punters. Not that she's currently looking for more, she's swamped.
"People ask whether I'd be sad if more bars opened like this in Stretford. Not at all. I'd happily welcome more. I could probably go travelling again."
The Sip Club 64A Barton Road (above Trading Places), Stretford, Manchester M32 8DP.
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Heather Garlick and The CAMRA award
