“You can see why we’re calling it a neighbourhood, right?” says Dan Mullen, one of the founders of Ramona and The Firehouse. With Adelaide Winter and Joel Wilkinson, they launched the outside-inside Detroit pizza and BBQ chicken-meets-vogue-runway spot on the site of an old MOT garage on the edge of Ancoats and the NQ in the middle of lockdown.
Their new project is a different ball game. Actually, it’s a different sport altogether. ‘Neighbourhood’ does indeed fit the bill, and this site is pretty much as big as one. They’ve taken on the former Presbar Diecast works, just beyond the arches which once housed the Warehouse Project, between Ducie Street and Store Street.
And it’s enormous, spread over 250,000 square feet. You could fit many, many Ramonas inside it, and still have room for an Olympic size swimming pool and a couple of football pitches. Maybe three football pitches. It’s bewilderingly huge.
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Previously, anything you needed moulding out of aluminium, you could get made here. They used to make everything from alloy wheels and machine parts to the wing mirrors for Lamborghinis.
But come the summer, this vast factory floor will be a place to meet, eat, drink, possibly dance, and, if you need some office space, work too. Called Diecast - what else? - it’ll also be available to use for anything from music videos to movie and TV sets to glitzy award ceremonies and other creative events.
The place will be able to fit 5,000 people indoors and across its huge garden space, which you’ll pass through from the entrance gates on Ducie Street. They reckon when it’s up and running it will have created upwards of 500 jobs for the city.
But it wasn’t until they got the keys that they quite realised the gravity of the undertaking, and it has taken all their blood, sweat and tears to get this far. They inherited 14 fork lift trucks, along with vast amounts of abandoned industrial hardware. “Cleaning a factory should not be underestimated,” says Mullen.
“When we got it, it was still operational, the furnaces, the presses, it was like the end of Terminator,” says Adelaide. “It was quite hard to comprehend. Even getting to this stage has been a lot of work.” Two years in fact, not long after Ramona opened up, hitting the ground running during the pandemic and quickly becoming one of the most popular bars in the city.
Only originally intended to be a pop up, a placeholder while plans for apartments on the site went through, it was confirmed last year that it will be staying on the site for good. The three friends met while working at favourite Manchester haunts like Trof and latterly The Albert Hall, with Ramona being the first project out on their own.
And while Ramona has become famed for its Detroit pizza, margaritas and mezcal, Diecast will be serving up 'NeoPan' pizza (its take on the Neapolitan style). It'll also boast the ‘House of Daiquiri’ bar, specialising in frozen daiquiris, pina coladas, as well as heritage and new world rums, an open-air barbecue kitchen, a bakery and its own brewery, making beer on site as well as its own kombucha.
It won’t be a food hall type situation with independent traders - they’ll be doing everything themselves, in house, something that chimes with Mullen's start in the hospitality business, as a chef.
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“Something of this scale, it becomes a destination,” says Mullen. “Something that draws people in, regionally and nationally, and maybe internationally.”
“Hopefully we’ll be doing something that might be notable on a global stage,” adds Adelaide. “That’s our ambition anyway.” What they will say for the moment is that inspiration has come from a number of places around the world, from Los Angeles to warehouse restaurants in New York to the hipster vibes of Austin, Texas, to street markets in Tel Aviv.
As well as the huge main space, which will house Diecast’s brewery, its open kitchen and a ‘festival stage’ for entertainment, there are two other huge rooms, almost the same size again, one of which is becoming a ‘creative and tech hub’ for start-up businesses. One business already in the building is a pioneering robotics firm, a spin-off from Manchester University.
Another room on the adjacent second floor could easily house a huge capacity live venue or club, though plans for it are being kept under their hats at the moment. Things are currently working in phases, and phase one is very much the bar, eating space and garden, which is hoped will be open just as the summer kicks in.
Opening days are expected to be Friday, Saturday and Sunday to begin with, with possible Thursday opening in time, while the factory space will be available for other creative events during the week.
At the moment, the place is a cavernous blank canvas. Getting to this stage has already taken a huge amount of work, but now the wheels are fully in motion, building out the bar and kitchen should happen fairly quickly.
“In the spring and summer, it’s so beautiful,” says Adelaide, out in what will be the beer garden, once some of the 25 tonne industrial presses have been moved. Above the garden, the canal runs in the aqueduct, heading off towards the peaks. “There’s a hedgerow with wild roses, and loads of wildlife, it's a real sun trap,” she goes on. “I think we just want to do something brilliant."
Doors at Diecast are expected to open later in the summer.
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