We went out into Manchester to find out more about one of the city’s most heartbreaking recently losses.
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00:00Hello and welcome to Manchester World, my name's Theo Huston-Burt and today I'm outside what used to be the Church Street market for a video
00:05we're doing across our titles looking at some of the UK cities and towns lost shops. Now along with the rest of Manchester
00:10I'm sure I know the pain of having one of my favorite places shut up shop, either for financial or personal reasons.
00:16Indeed Manchester has a fairly bad recent history with closures.
00:19The impact of the cost of living crisis along with increasing costs has put paid to some real cult favorites including the hip-hop chip shop
00:25which was a recent victim and indeed almost famous, the ironically famous burger joint was safe from liquidation very recently and has thankfully been able
00:32to reopen under new ownership. When it comes to shops though this area, this old market has been one of the more
00:37heartbreaking stories of recent times.
00:39Let's flash back to September where word of its imminent closure was announced. The words end of an era were the first to come to mind
00:45for many. The building on High Street behind it is preparing for development and the market stores were simply too much at risk to attempt
00:51to keep open.
00:52Instead McCall's organic food shop, Afro-Asian Caribbean and Manchester book buyers were all forced to close. The market may have looked fairly
00:59nondescript, but it was actually the breeding ground for some of this area's most interesting businesses.
01:02Indeed,
01:03Northern Soul grilled cheese started off in the market before moving to bigger digs in the northern quarter. Of all the stores that we said
01:09goodbye to when the market shut, the Manchester book buyers may have been the most difficult.
01:12It resided in these very stores for 54 years.
01:16Eddie the owner had witnessed the rise and fall and rise again of Manchester as a cultural beacon.
01:20He'd stood and sold books while Liam and Noel Gallagher were still buying records from sifters and thinking about starting a band.
01:26When Sir Alex Ferguson joined Man United, Eddie was there with his books and when he left the club 26 years and 38 trophies later,
01:32again, there was Eddie still peddling his wares.
01:35A global pandemic couldn't touch him,
01:37but eventually it came time to pack up the stall and our former colleague Sophia
01:40spoke to Eddie last year ahead of the last days of the market.
01:43I'll link that article in the description for you,
01:45but she put it best when she said it was the sort of place that the books find you
01:48rather than the other way around.
01:49Those market stores were unique in Manchester, a small space with reasonably low rent
01:53that allows small businesses to flourish and find their feet.
01:56They're the sort of stories that the northern quarter is built on
01:58and then the sort of stories that the city is going to have to work hard to replicate.
02:01Now, I don't want to get emotional.
02:03I won't make it all about me.
02:04I went out into the streets of Manchester earlier to ask people on the street
02:06about some of their favorite stores that they've had to say goodbye to.
02:09I'm is Oklahoma.
02:10It used to be on the street where Ezra and Gil is,
02:14and it used to have all these like Wes Anderson pictures on the walls
02:19and he was doing brunch.
02:21But like you went there and you feel like you're on a movie set
02:23and it was open for maybe like a couple of months
02:26and then it kept closing and opening and I just disappeared.
02:28I don't know. Do you remember it?
02:30It was tech coffee just around the corner from there.
02:33I went there to get myself breakfast one day on a Sunday.
02:35They used to make the best sandwiches.
02:37I miss that sandwich every day of my life.
02:39I want it back.
02:40Lime Bar in Salford, because it's the only place you can get a drink, sushi
02:44and a DJ all in one night.
02:46So there we are.
02:47Please get in contact with us and send over your suggestions
02:49from some of the best stores that we in Manchester have loved and lost.
02:53That's all for now.
02:53And from the old church street markets, probably for the last time.
02:56I've been Theo with Manchester World. Thanks for watching.