The Mancunian Way: If Greens can’t survive what hope is there?

Hello

How could somewhere as popular as Greens, as good as Greens, be closing down? It’s a question many have been asking following arguably the most high-profile loss to Manchester’s hospitality scene in years.

Yesterday Greens owners, and veggie pioneers, Simon Rimmer and business partner Simon Connolly announced the closure of their Sale^[1] restaurant. A crippling rent rise, amid an already tough backdrop of increasing costs for food, power and wages made the business ‘untenable’, they said.

It follows the closure of their original West Didsbury^[2] eatery earlier this year and brings to a heartbreaking end the Greens story in Manchester, a restaurant that has been ‘terrifying carnivores since 1990’.

Greens in Sale has shut with immediate effect this week (Image: MEN)

Here lifestyle editor Dianne Bourne pays tribute to a trailblazing business that changed the way Mancs ate out…

For anyone too young to remember the dining scene in Manchester in the 1990s, it’s probably hard to understand just how significant Greens was when it first opened its doors.

Back then it was a trailblazer, not only paving the way for other vegetarian restaurants, but also inspiring so many chefs to be bold and to carve their own niche. It won countless awards, and would catapult Simon on to celebrity chef status too.

Anyone who ever went there will remember their first experience of Greens, myself included. There was the shock of going to a pretty fancy restaurant and realising that everything on the menu, even though it was all veggie, tasted sublime. The realisation that a full vegetarian menu could actually taste better than most ‘regular’ restaurants was a huge eye-opener.

It maintained a loyal following over 33 years, with then the second site in Sale added too offering a more casual take on the original Greens ethos within the setting of Stanley Square.

But we are now sadly in a situation where even being really good and really popular isn’t enough to enable good, even iconic, businesses to survive.

And make no mistake about it, the closure of Greens is not going to be the last this month. With quarterly rent reviews hitting business owners everywhere, electricity bills on the rise again, this could end up being one of the toughest months of the year so far.

Dianne has more here…^[3]

Up in the air

The areas where pollution levels are still too high

Pollution levels were still too high in 64 places across Greater Manchester last year and are set to stay above legal limits until 2026, reports politics writer Joseph Timan. Reducing pollution was the key aim of the controversial Clean Air Zone, which would have seen some motorists charged a daily fee to drive on some roads.^[4][5]

But those plans were dramatically paused in 2022 and remain ‘under review’. Now transport bosses have issued a major update on the scheme^[6].

They insist that charging owners of vehicles with the highest emissions will not be necessary. Instead, they say spending £51m on new electric and cleaner diesel buses, reducing traffic around the city centre and offering cash grants for vehicle upgrades will be enough to clean up the region’s air.

But all that will take a year longer than expected. And campaign groups say it will still not be enough and in the meantime the region still has some of the worst air pollution in the country.

‘A growing culture of censorship’

Posters for the cancelled show (Image: Manchester Evening News)

The Royal Exchange controversy is still rumbling on. Yesterday the theatre issued a statement following the last-minute cancellation of a six-week run of Midsummer Night’s Dream following a row over references to ‘free Palestine’ and pro-transgender rights in the play^[7].

Bosses said they want to ‘work with artists who address complex issues’, but said a ‘number of challenges’ had occurred. But actors’ union Equity has accused the Royal Exchange Theatre of a ‘lack of transparency’ and said it rejects the ‘growing culture’ of censorship and will continue to fight for ‘artistic integrity’ and ‘freedom of expression’. More here…^[8]

On the map

Manchester United forward Marcus Rashford shared the Google Maps image on Instagram (Image: Google Maps)

Anyone recognise this lad? It’s a young Marcus Rashford in his United kit caught on Google Maps^[9] as an 11-year-old waiting for a lift to training outside a row of shops in Wythenshawe^[10].

Fresh from bagging a brace against Barnsley in the league cup on Tuesday night, Rashford shared the snap on Instagram with the message: “Button lane pickup point”.

Bunkering down

The bunker is buried 14 foot underground (Image: SDL Property Auctions)

It’s 14ft underground, is ‘clean and dry’ and, crucially, comes with an ‘unused toilet’. And for £15,000 this Cold War nuclear bunker on the edge of the Peak District could be yours.

The Royal Observer Corps’ bunker in the village of Wormhill near Buxton is one of 1,500 built in the 1950s. It was ‘designed to provide protective accommodation for three observers to survive a nuclear attack’. You can take a look round here…

Weather etc

Friday: Overcast changing to sunny intervals by late morning, 20C.

Roadworks: Temporary traffic lights due to roadworks on Deansgate^[11] at Liverpool Road until May 2025.

Manchester headlines

Couple found dead: Tributes have been paid to a ‘wonderful’ couple who died after huge floods swept them away while hiking on holiday in Majorca. Sarah Jane Thompson, 26, and her boyfriend Alexander Barrett, 32, were found dead following a major search and rescue operation on the Spanish island earlier this month. The couple disappeared on September 3 during a hiking expedition.