Manchester milkshake and burger bar Archie’s has launched a new breakfast menustacked with naughty breakfast burgers, fluffy pancake stacks, hash browns and ‘breakfast tots’ – miniature tater tots loaded with all your morning essentials.
Available at Piccadilly and Manchester Aiport, the new breakfast menu will be served from 8am – 11am in the week and 9am – 12pm on weekends.
Even better, they’re offering a free coffee (be that a cappuccino, latte, or americano) with your breakfast for the first month – available from now until 11 February.
Think seven different customisable burgers on the menu to choose from, stuffed with the likes of hash browns, avocado, chicken sausage patties, cheese, smoked turkey bacon, sriracha, fried or scrambled eggs, tomato, chives and more.
Image: The Manc Group
All served in warm glazed buns, new stand outs include vegetarian The Yolker, filled with smashed lime-infused avocado, scrambled eggs, chives, cheese and sriracha mayo; and the new and improved Breakfast Club (double beef patty, turkey bacon, hash brown, fried egg, BBQ sauce and cheese).
Elsewhere, sweet tooths will find fluffy American-style pancakes priced from just £4.99 loaded with choices like bacon and maple syrup; whipped cream, banana and toffee sauce; or strawberries, chocolate, whipped cream and hazelnut sauce.
And that’s not all. All of the brand’s classic and celeb shakes are available at breakfast, as well as its soft drinks list and giant chocolate, fruit and ice cream-loaded waffles.
Credit: The Manc Group
Crinkle fries and curly fries appear here too, giving Archie’s fans the full-on diner experience – just earlier in the day, with a new breakfast twist.
The bright pink American-style fast food diner, which first popped up on Oxford Road in 2010, now has eight sites in total – six in Manchester, one in Liverpool and another in Leeds.
A ninth branch will be opening in Birmingham next month too.
But believe it or not, the hit Manc business first started off as a carwash in Cheetham Hill before becoming the popular made-to-order burger empire it is today.
Image: Archie’s
Prior to launching the first Archie’s on Oxford road in 2010, the four Rafiq brothers behind it – Amer, the eldest, and siblings Imran, Asim and Irfan – actually devised the concept three years earlier whilst running the successful Wash and Glow, a hotspot for local footballers and celebrities such as Corrie’s Ryan Thomas.
This, in turn, funded their idea to move into the burger world and helped to launch into a brand new industry – taking that ‘go and be seen’ shine that made their car wash so popular and applying it to fast food instead.
Support from celebrities early in the day, such as rappers like Nas and The Game, quickly made Archie’s a go-to place – with visits heralded by a ‘celeb shakes’ list that pays homage to some of the namesakes who’ve been over the years.
Singers Rita Ora and Pia Mia, professional boxers Floyd Mayweather and Amir Khan, and comedian Kevin Hart all get a shout-out on the menu – which gives diners the chance to enjoy signature shakes created especially for the celebs.
Twelve years later, Archie’s is still just as iconic as it ever was – this latest gift to commuters at Piccadilly station and the airport is just the cherry on top.
Feature image – The Manc Group
Eats
Lively Irish pub Nancy Spains set to open in Manchester for the first time
Daisy Jackson
An Irish bar famed for its live music is heading up to Manchester for the first time, and is promising £2.50 pints to lure us in.
Nancy Spains will be venturing out of London for the first time promising to bring the ‘ultimate traditional Irish pub experience’ to the Northern Quarter.
If you were to ask what the hottest trend in hospitality is right now the answer would, apparently, be Guinness. We’re drowning in the stuff.
This latest opening is more about Murphy’s, another Irish stout, than Guinness (they actually won’t serve Guinness at all) but the craic will be much the same.
Nancy Spains is actually set to open almost directly opposite the aforementioned Salmon of Knowledge, taking over the former Corner Boy unit on Stevenson Square in the heart of Manchester.
To celebrate its opening, the pub will be serving its first 5000 pints of Murphy’s for just £2.50, so that it can show off the atmosphere that’s established it as ‘one of London’s favourite pubs’.
They’re promising an array of Irish whiskeys behind the bar, live music performances, and a lively late-night setting.
Nancy Spains was set up by three brothers who travelled all over their home county of rural Kerry researching Irish pubs, before launching two venues down in London.
They want it to balance a traditional pub with the vibrancy of the city.
Peter O’Halloran, co-founder of Nancy Spains commented, “We’re so excited to be launching in Manchester, bringing Nancy Spains to the heart of the Northern Quarter.
“After the success of our two venues in London, it was only right to bring Nancy Spains’ infectious spirit and Irish pride to Manchester. Slainte!”
Nancy Spains will open its first Manchester pub on Saturday 15 March at 21 Hilton Street.
Lucky Mama’s – The Italian restaurant serving pasta in a dough bowl and ‘pregnant’ pizzas
Daisy Jackson
Lucky Mama’s is a local sensation, thanks to its slightly whacky but delicious Italian creations like pasta served in a bowl made of pizza dough and its latest offering, a ‘pregnant’ pizza.
What on Earth is a pregnant pizza, you ask? Firstly we should stress this is a nickname we’ve bestowed upon the dish, rather than Lucky Mama’s chosen branding.
But essentially it’s a helping of fresh pasta that’s folded into the bubble crust of the pizza, like a half-calzone.
Lucky Mama’s started life when founders Mamadou Dhiam and Gaby Santos set up a trailer in their backyard in Eccles in the depths of lockdown.
But thanks to a formidably loyal following that’s spread the word of Lucky Mama’s far and wide, it now has two pretty pink restaurants in Greater Manchester.
Back in 2022, they threw open the doors to their Chorlton restaurant, before returning back to home turf for spot number two in Monton in 2024.
The recipes are fresh and pretty authentically Italian up until the last step, when they throw a curveball by loading their pasta into unconventional vessels.
‘Pregnant’ pizzas at Lucky Mama’sTraditional Roman pizzasLucky Mama’s pink restaurant in Chorlton
Their pasta pizza bowls are what they’re best known for and they fly out of the kitchen – this is where pizza dough is placed around a metal bowl before being baked in an oven.
Then it’s piled high with freshly made pasta, with popular flavours like cacio e pepe, mushroom alfredo, and rasta pasta.
Pasta is available in a regular ceramic bowl too.
You’ll find Lucky Mama’s at 565 Barlow Moor Road in Chorlton; and 217 Monton Road in Eccles.
Georgina Pellant -
20th January 2022 
