Loaf

My Manchester cousins brought me here to party one night. It was a lot of fun for me since I was able to get in at only 18 years of age.
The night basically consisted of us 5 cousins getting buzzed and drunk and dancing around like idiots.
However, this is a huge bar and I really liked the lay out. It was absolutely beautiful with high ceilings and a huge bar area and tables scattered about so that people could rest their drinks on them while they partied.
One fond memory that I have of this place was when my cousins and I were all singing along to The Ting Tings. We didn’t get home until about 4 in the morning, but it was well worth it!

Deansgate Locks is like stumbling into a Tory convention by accident. It’s all horrible, jumped up little go-​getters with their orange pecs and blokes braying from inside their badly tailored suits.
Loaf in many ways, lives up to expectations of a bar on this strip.
Prices are high — unjustifiably so in my humble opinion — especially if you’re drinking spirits. A reasonable round of whiskies leaves you wondering why they didn’t give you the whole bottle.
The music is pretty bad and the décor is the archetypal Where People From Romcoms Go For A Drink In A Scene Shot In The City. Faceless, bland and aching to be hip.
That said, it isn’t all doom and gloom. Get in there for an afternoon and they occasionally have offers on the food which is passable. Really though, Manchester is a great city and you could find a better place to hang in just about any direction.

Loaf can be found on Deansgate Locks nestled within what I can only refer to as a row of ‘scalliesque bars’. However it must be said that Loaf seems to be the exception on most nights of the week excluding perhaps the dizzying heights of the post-​work– booze– up on a Friday night. That said if you are fearful of venturing into a student night stay well clear on a Monday as it is full of such specimens. The décor at Loaf is stylish and modern, yet a feel it benefits hugely from the the fact it is in fact built under one of the arches. It is therefore huge inside with bare-​bricked walls and barrel vault ceilings. The drinks in here are very expensive as are all the clubs/​pubs on the ‘Locks’ and the music leaves is just shy of cheesy at times.
All this said I cannot escape the fact that I have returned to Loaf more times that I can count on one hand (or maybe two). An easy place to find that can be fun for a few drinks and a cheesy dance (although I’m slightly ashamed to say it).

The housing of bars in the huge arches that support Manchester’s Northern Line was a fantastic bit of thinking outside the box.
Whoever thought of it, well done you– you’re one those clever ones, I bet you have a massive bookshelf.
BUT! Whoever it was who decided to fill these magnificent spaces with a glut of generic bars that promised a glut of divs is a right tit with no books and no shelf– well done mate you’ve ruined everyone’s night, time to leave.
This is supposed to be a review of chief offender Loaf, but it could just as easily be a review of any of the bars that soil the locks.
The furniture is predictably dark wood in a vaguely modern style, the seating is cheap top grain black leather that rather than acquiring a nice patina with age, instead acquires the bar proprietor a nice big bill every two years when he (or she– Don’t want to offend the girls, women are equally capable at owning shit leather) has to reupholster it all again. Meaningless pictures adorn/​offend the brick walls and the bar serves a range of overpriced average beer and reasonably priced shite wine.
Go on a Saturday night… and you should be ashamed of yourself you diamonte studded T shirt wearing turnip.

Loaf is what I would consider to be a typical night out on the locks. The clientele is generally quite yuppie-​ish, everyone is preened and plucked to within an inch of their life and it is a bit of a glamour show. However the atmosphere is generally friendly enough, and I’ve never experience much aggro there. The bar is divided into the actual bar area and then a seated area with couches and stools. The whole bar is fairly clean and smart, as are the toilets. Its within easy reach of public transport and other bars and clubsits just not really my kind of venue that’s all.

Not what it used to be but still a good place to have a few drinks and check out the scene? The toilets are downstairs where you can find another bar and has easy access to the wooden decking onto the canal. This can be ideal if you’re a smoker and need to have a death stick. Around the bar is a big dance floor area but it just doesn’t get that busy anymore for it to be open. The bar upstairs has big projector screens on the ceiling which are good the footy games in the day time but I prefer the models they show from the fashion TV channel.

If overpriced drinks and pretentious people are your thing then this is the place for you. If you like to wear your sunglasses in a dark room then you’ll love this place.

prob more for the younger crowd but always a decent night and music on the whole very good downstairs. nice interior also but very expensive drink and can take a while to get served on a saturday night. good thing is that you can flit from bar to bar at the locks or venture into castlefield for a better night

great place, popular with students, situated on the ever popular deansgate locks, good night out!

Ah yes, Deansgate Locks. The Loaf is exactly what you might expect from a bar on ‘the locks’. What makes the Loaf worse though are the appallingly high prices. If you drink spirits I would advise caution, unless of course you fancy blowing your pay-​check in one round at the bar. The clientele is typical of Deansgate Locks, pumped up men in suit jackets act like utteractually if that’s what they enjoy it’s not for anyone esle to judge. No one’s forcing me to go there, thank God, so I won’t. Stay clear.

Located in the Deansgate locks area of manchester. This club is a restuarant by day and a nightclub by night. It is mainly crowded by students on monday nights which is probably the most lively night. However only students with student cards are let inl. The security is also very strict as far as dress code is concerned. However, drinks are really cheap and the atmosphere is always lively as students really know how to have a good time. Highly recommended.

we went on saturday night and managed to get seated straight away in a wicked little booth area. we had a sofa and good seats so could see everything. there was a lot of sleazy men in there but we just told them to leave us alone. we managed to get served quickly.
the bar was split into two with one side with a lot of seats and sofas for us to chill. and the other was busy with people dancing. we didnt have to pay to get in.
drinks were reasonable. the only thing that was really bad was the music. it sounded like lift music but more dancey. i guess they would call it house music but it was so mundane and generic.
staff were nice and friendly and there was no queue to get in.

Loaf is one of the bigger bars in the Deansgate Locks. As well as having 2 bars it also has a restaurant and a nightclub that is really popular on a weekend. Loaf is located underneath the g-​mex tram stop and it looks particularly nice as it is build in a converter railway arch. I live fairly close to Deansgate so I quite often go down tot eh locks for a few drinks on a weekend.
If you go to Loaf during the day then it is more likely than not quite quiet. It does however have a chilled out and vibrant feeling to it where you can enjoy a quiet drink of a meal, although the food is quite good (limited) it is also quite costly. On an evening loaf is hotspot due it its ideal locations and the neighboring trendy bars. Inside the décor is very suave, sleek and very trendy. There are massive plasma TV’s all over the place. The drinks are very expensive but this doesn’t seem to deter people from coming. It’s a definite for most people who are young, trendy and live in the vicinity.

prententious, full of try-​hards and overly expensive– sleezy men galore! need i say more?

a great place to go, drinks a bargain with nus card, show at the door for cheap entry.