Soho House owner Nick Jones has admitted that he’s nervous about opening up the Manchester branch of the private members club. The club, which it’s hoped will be open by the end of the year and will bring 150 jobs to the city, is currently under construction in the old Granada TV studios building.
It will be the group’s first venue in the north of England. Speaking at the Northern Restaurant and Bar show, when asked how he felt about the opening, he simply said ‘nervous’, adding that he feels that way before launching in any new city.
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“I do feel nervous,” he said. “Manchester has a vast number of bars. I really hope it will work, but I’m not in any way presuming it will. We want to employ everyone from Manchester, and then spend a lot of time learning and listening. There will be an element of glamour to the place, but with an element of grit too. We have a lot of local people working with us, so the programming will be local, the music [will be local].”
He added that with all Soho House venues, it will always be weighted towards 80% local memberships. “Wherever you are [in the world] you always want to go where the local people are.”
Being interviewed by the show’s CEO Thom Hetherington, historic quotes Jones gave in 1995, when he opened the first Soho House, about culture outside London being less relevant were discussed too.
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“First of all I was naive about that,” admitted Jones. “It clearly was not the facts then. Britain as a whole is full of interesting creativity everywhere you go; Glasgow, Manchester, Cornwall, Leeds, Birmingham. I just clearly got that wrong. And now we’re excited to bring Soho Houses to other places in the UK. Like we have in America. The way you do America is that you do New York, you do LA, you do Miami, then Chicago, and then where do you go after that? You go to Nashville, to Austin. They call them the ‘B cities’. But I don’t think the same way over here. Manchester is A+.”
The site will be spread over three floors of the studio building, with Jones confirming that the club will also feature a rooftop swimming pool. There will also be further outside space on the roof, work spaces and a music venue/club space too.
In addition, there will be a Cecconi’s, its Italian restaurant concept, and a Mollie’s Diner, which also has locations in Bristol and Oxfordshire. The group already has 27 clubs around the world, the first being London, before expanding to cities including New York, Berlin, Barcelona, Istanbul and Mumbai.
As well as Manchester, clubs are also set to open in Mexico City by the end of the year, and another in Sao Paolo in 2023.
Asked by the M.E.N. whether he was ever concerned about diluting the brand by opening further locations, he added: “That’s a question I ask myself. But what members love, when you ask them, is new houses. So as long as with every house we put more effort in than the last one, try and make it even better than before, then hopefully that’s not diluting anything.” Soho House Manchester is set to open late 2022 or early 2023.
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