The place
A basement under a former textile warehouse. Bare concrete, exposed conduit, industrial lighting turned right down. Three rooms and no attempt made to hide what the building used to be.
It exists because Manchester closes early and a lot of people finish work at eleven. Kitchen staff, bar staff, nurses, sound engineers, people off the last train. The room fills between half twelve and two, which is the wrong shape for most venues and exactly right for this one.
No bottle service. No minimum spend. No reserved sections. No DJ before midnight, vinyl only after, and it stays under conversation. Every table costs the same as every other table, which is nothing, because we do not sell tables.
Room one — poker
Past the first set of steel doors. Eight tables, licensed dealers on every one, under a Gambling Commission premises licence. Here you play the other people at the table and the house takes a capped rake for running the game. We have no stake in who wins.
- The list is paper, at the cage, in person. We do not take names by phone and we do not hold seats.
- Chips are bought at the cage with cash or debit. Never at the table, never on credit, and nothing is held as security.
- Rake is 5% to a £5 cap. Printed on a card at every table and on the wall at the cage. Unchanged since we opened.
- Phones off the table entirely. Not face down, not in your hand. Take the call standing at the bar.
- Sitting out fifteen minutes and the seat goes back on the list. Tell the dealer if you need longer and we will usually work with it.
- Disputes — dealer calls it, floor settles it, floor is final at the table. Argue it with the manager afterwards, not mid-hand.
- Never played live before? Say so at the cage. You go on the softest table with the most patient dealer. Nobody here started knowing what they were doing.
Room two — the pit
Through the second set of steel doors, in the old loading bay, is a house-banked casino floor on its own licence with its own staff.
The difference between the two rooms is the one thing worth being clear about. In the poker room the house takes a rake and stands aside. Through here, the house is the other side of every bet you make — roulette, blackjack, the machines in the corner, all of it banked by us and all of it carrying a margin in our favour.
What is actually live on a given night, and what it costs to sit down, we do not publish — it changes most weeks. The cage tells you when you buy in. Think 25 at the street door and again at the steel doors: two licences, two checks, however many times you have been in. No cash machine on the casino floor and there will not be one; the nearest is on the main road, which is the point.
Bar and kitchen
Drinks
Six cocktails on rotation, four taps — one lager, one pale, one dark, one guest. Highballs made properly and made fast. The espresso martini is the reason the machine is still on at three. Six alcohol-free options in the same price bracket as everything else. Water is free and there are jugs on every table, always.
Kitchen, until 02:00
Chilli fries, which is the house order. Bao two ways, pork or mushroom. Three toasties, all serious. Dumplings, eight to a portion. Kimchi rice with or without egg. Nothing on it costs over £11. Food is not served at the poker tables — there is a shelf and four stools by the cage for exactly this, and the floor holds your seat while you eat.
Door
- ID every visit. Passport, driving licence or PASS card. However often you come, however well the door knows you. Think 25 is in force and the door does not negotiate on it.
- No means no. If the door turns you away that is the end of it. Arguing in the alley at two in the morning is the fastest route to a permanent ban.
- Capacity is 140 and we count. Saturday that can mean a forty-minute wait. There is no way to skip it and no charge to avoid it.
- Drunk is drunk. Visibly intoxicated means no entry; if it happens inside, no more service and no more play. Staff will call you a taxi and wait with you for it.
- Keep the alley quiet. We share the building with flats and our licence depends on the neighbours. Smoking is the fenced corner, not the alley mouth.
- Getting home. Rideshare pickup is on the main road, not in the alley. Night buses run from two streets over. Ask any staff member to walk you out — someone always will.
Reaching us
Bar 0161 496 0231 · Cage and poker room 0161 496 0244
· Casino 0161 496 0257
General [email protected] · Hire
[email protected] · Work with us
[email protected]
Phones are answered from 20:00 on opening nights. Ring to find out how long the wait is, whether the £2/£5 is running, or to tell us you left a coat. It is not for taking names on the poker list — that only happens at the cage, in person.
Lost property sits behind the cage for thirty days. Bank cards go straight in the shredder, same night, every time.
Self-exclusion: tell any manager or the cage and it is done that night. It can cover the casino, the poker room or both, and leave the bar open to you. Confidential, and we will not raise it with you again.
Four in the morning is not a strategy
Nearly everything about a late-night room works against good judgement. It is dark, there are no windows, you have probably been awake for eighteen hours and you have very likely had a drink. None of that makes anyone play better. All of it makes people play longer than they meant to.
Set your number at the cage, buy that much in chips, leave the card in your pocket. When it is gone the night is over — that is what the number was for. Never rebuy to chase a loss. Free confidential support any hour from GamCare and the National Gambling Helpline on 0808 8020 133, and from BeGambleAware.
18+ · Think 25 · Take time to think · begambleaware.org