Best Bars: The Temple in the toilet

National World - LocalTV

The Temple is a Manchester staple for fans of the music scene here. From a great relationship with Guy Garvey to one of the best jukeboxes in the city, it is a special place…  …however it operates out of an interesting venue.

Transcript

00:00this is the temple or to give it its full name the temple of convenience

00:03i'm here today because i've been quested with finding the best and quirkiest venue in manchester

00:07and this is absolutely one of the contenders it's an old victorian toilet which has been

00:11turned into a bar and i really can't wait to get in have a look around and talk to one of the staff

00:16members there about what makes it such a special place now the temple occupies a very important

00:20part of manchester's bar scene and that is it's a jukebox bar now you might find little jukeboxes

00:26in many places but they certainly won't be as impressive as this one it really is a brilliant

00:31music venue and the fact that it's located in an old victorian toilet makes it all the more special

00:36it's right in the center of a bunch of arenas where gigs take place and its links to the music

00:40scene couldn't be any clearer i sat down and talked to jack who's worked there for two years

00:45to try and understand what makes this place so special um yeah i'm jack i've been a bartender

00:50here for two years now it was an old victorian toilet public toilet um there's loads of stories

00:56about that just like say boys uh it was owned by uh someone that also owned a big ensemble

01:05just by the academies and they yeah then opened this i think it was something like 20 odd years

01:12ago something like that yeah it's been here for a lot of places try really hard to have a gimmick

01:20there's lots of bars that have come and gone in manchester that had some kind of gimmick or

01:25whatever but it is just a smooth bar with a good jukebox that's been here all the time it may not

01:31always work but like it's just a nice place to be and yeah it's just that like weird slightly

01:38chaotic place you come in yeah you can then stay in here for the rest of the night or you could

01:42then go out and just be somewhere else you know kind of like the claim to fame example is the

01:48relation with guy garvey okay yeah so you're mobile yeah and so there's the whole thing of

01:53the song grounds for divorce it's their like second most famous song i think ever then the

01:57line in that is a hole in my neighborhood which i frequently pull down is here oh wow and that's

02:03he used to live somewhere up that road he will still i mean rarely rarely but you know he will

02:11still come in here and he's around so i mean it's really important the guy that owned it was a

02:16musician i think he i think he passed in i think 2018 it's they've always wanted it to be a rock

02:23band you know where you can't have huge periods of music same for that and big hands that's why

02:26we've always got gigs from there so it's yeah it wouldn't exist without the gig scene he was

02:32a rocker most of the big cabino because it's so small you're forced to talk to people which is

02:37nice so you end up with these big strains of people that they haven't you know they didn't

02:41know each other coming in but they've left you know which is nice i am theo with manchester world

02:46that's all for today please come down and give the temple a go there's a great bar a great jukebox

02:51great atmosphere in there great community around it and i really can't recommend it enough

02:55particularly if you like weird and wacky surroundings come down give it a go and

02:58follow manchester world for more

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