Walk through the Northern Quarter on any given weekday between 7am and 4pm, and you’re almost guaranteed to wonder what the queue on the corner of Tib Street and Hilton Street is for. Workmen in high vis, business women in trouser suits and pensioners with mugs in their hands all gather on the street corner for what is one of Manchester’s best and friendliest sandwich shops.
If you’ve never heard of them, let me introduce you to Rustica. A Mancunian institution, the takeout hatch has been part of the NQ for a whopping 22 years. Opening at the turn of the millennium, they’ve seen six Prime Ministers, three different decades, thousands of customers and now - two monarchs.
Manager Jeanette Such, who’s mum owns the business, jokes that she’s seen three owners off before running the family business herself. The 49-year-old, from Beswick, says the reason the shop is so successful is because they try to keep costs low.
