Baa Bar

I always like coming in here to get one of the cool shots for a pound then moving on to somewhere else, its not a kind of bar to stay in all night though it is fun with mainly a student crowd. drinks are well priced and the bar staff are always fun. Its a cool bar to go to with friends or in a large group if youre looking for somewhere to start the night, it also has a little dance floor downstairs if youre looking for somewhere to dance at the end of the night.

£1 shots in all the fun combinations I can imagine? Count me in.
And I have to say, during the start of the term, they can be pretty generous with the amount of vouchers they pass out students, sure had me coming back multiple times, in a week… And the other drinks I felt were pretty nice on a student’s wallet as well. Hope that doesn’t change anytime soon!
Dance floor in the basement, I honestly do not remember what was on the playlist, but I’m sure I had fun.

Situé dans le quartier gay de manchester agreable bar a l etage avec leurs fameux shoots a 1 £ barmaid tres accueillant ambiance au top

Love it here! Cheap shots and a really friendly atmosphere. It is technically a gay bar but the clientèle comprises, gay, straight, bi. I went with my boyfriend and I didn’t feel out of place at all. Only downside is that the dance floor could be bigger because after all the cheap shots, people want to dance! I could spend a whole night in here and get completely smashed (I am a massive lightweight though) A fantastic venue!

Trendy interior. Brilliant array of cocktails. Cheap prices. Good music. Busy atmosphere. Definitely a place to go for pre-​drinks and over the weekends, with its free entry, maybe a place to stay the whole night.

I am shameless in my love for this Baa Bar. If you’re contemplating a trip to Baa Bar, forego the Deansgate Locks one in favour of Sackville Street. Not that the Locks are anything to be avoided (well, depending on your tastes — I have to be dragged there kicking and screaming fr’instance), the fact is that they jack up the drinks prices, plus you don’t get the same jovial Gay Village feeling as you do here.
Baa Bar shots to me are like Hard Rock Café cocktails — guilty, over-​sweet, silly; a guilty pleasure to be indulged every now and again. But while a cocktail in Hard Rock will have your bank balance weeping with fear, Baa Bar’s shots are cheap as chips and often come in a deal with their own alcopop-​esque cocktails anyway. If like me the thought of a big bag of Pick n’ Mix has you salivating, then Baa Bar’s the place for you. The shots are often made to mirror candy treats. Crème Eggs, Tutti Fruttis, Bakewell Tarts and soforth, and can be savoured as opposed to thrown down the oesophagus. Of course for the steely of stomach there are plenty of ‘dangerous’ alternatives with lacings of black sambuca, Jagermeister, gin and their more fiery friends.
Alcohol-​evoking childhood treats aside, the place is kitsch, fun and ambient. The music isn’t all disco and Europop — you can get some great retro rock at times — and the clientele are friendly. Often if seats are limited, newcomers may blag the spare ones on your table and engage you in conversation. I once heard the life story of a gay age-​gap couple, the elder slipping into fits of neuroses whenever his lover left for the bathroom. They were highly entertaining, and displayed hilarious mock-​horror when myself and my Converse-​clad Baa Bar companion Vickie S revealed ourselves not to be the lesbian couple they thought we were. (That’s an honest mistake many people make when we go out together, we can look quite butch n’ femme.)
All in all, if you’re new to the Village this is a great starting point. It doesn’t matter how you’re dressed, whatever your sexuality, this is a big cosy tacky hug of a place that’ll have you quoting John Waters movies without having even seen any.

LOVE it in here! gay, straight, bi everyone goes! dirt cheap too!

Perfect location, right in the heart of the gay village. Cheap shots, alcopops and range of beers.
The booths upstairs are perfect to chill out with your mates and watch the open dance floor. The place is surrounded with mirrors, loud cheesy music and neon lights. The barstaff are really friendly and make the night even more fun. Always a laugh.

Packed beyond belief most nights, I usually used this as a stop off before satans or Rock Kitchen etc. Despite it being packed the clientèle is extremely friendly sometimes too much: P. (The guy serving the test tube shots). Long waits at the bar but they have great deals on shots and bottles of VHF, Strongbow etc. There’s two floors one with a dance floor, tons of mirrors, unisex toilets all the usual things you find in a cheap gay bar. Not bad but if you don’t like crowds or generic pop music it may not be for you. But it is miles better than the indie crowding, fake idiot absorbing Baa Bar on deansgate.

A fabulous place to go for pre-​drinks before a big night out. With an assorted range of shots, sometimes you can get a free shot when you buy a vk, and any drink you could want… cocktails may be a bit of a challenge when it’s busy!
Staff aren’t always happy but it is incredibly busy in there! Toilets are cramped and a bit of a mess but security keeps a close eye on them all the time =)
A good atmosphere with fun shots to sum up!

I love Baa Bar! So fun! My husband took me here on one of my trips out to visit him when he lived in Manchester. I’ve never had so much fun!
Everyone was just really enjoying themselves. The guy selling shots was hilarious! He gave me a hug and kiss and I was covered in glitter after– which was great! A little souvenir from a great night!
The DJ played the Fresh Prince of Bel Air Theme song at one point, and considering I was a few drinks into my night I was super excited! I’m from Philadelphia, so it was pretty ironic they were playing that song that night!
Really fun place. I’d love to go again when I’m back in town!

Situated right slap bang in the middle of Manchester’s legendary gay village (it’s right next to Chorlton Street bus station), Baa Bar prides itself on providing unabashed cheap and cheerful fun. Indeed, it’s the kind of place which is shamelessly tacky — yet somehow this only adds to its charm.
I’ve had many a great night in Baa Bar necking neon coloured shots of worryingly fruity booze and dancing around my handbag to Britney Spears records. And I’m sure I can’t be the only one. This is a place which doesn’t want to score cool points, preferring to put most of its energies into ensuring that people have a really really good time.
Whether you’re straight or gay, bisexual or asexual, you can’t fail to have a truly cracking night out at Baa Bar. And if that wasn’t enough, you can almost certainly get pissed here on a fiver.
If you’re looking for some guaranteed silly, tacky, multicoloured fun for the price of the loose change you’ve found down the back of your sofa, then Baa Bar is the only place to go.

I agree with Rob that this is the best Baa Bar, and probably the only one really worth going to. Its really busy and has a good atmosphere with a good bunch of people in it. The one on Deansgate is really full too but its a joke how full it is and you cant even move in there.
This one is really much nicer. And this makes the perks of Baa Bar worthwhilse, as you dont have to pay the price of a bad time for their drinks.
These perks are:
£1 shots and probably a hundred odd falours to choose from
50p extra with a shot for a beer as well!
Making the place a great stop off for a pre-​night slice of fun!

BaaBar is a bit of a Manchester institution. It is a bar which you are expected to visit at some point during your time in the city, and it doesn’t disappoint. One of the smallest bars in the Canal Street area, BaaBar is one of the most noticeable. Bedecked in rainbow flags, BaaBar wants to be noticed, and you cannot fail to do so. Once you have made the decision to go in, it is clean (apparently not a pre-​requisite on Canal Street), fun and a genuinely exciting place to be.
The bar serves your normal range of drinks and occasionally has special offers, but the best thing about the BaaBar drinks range is its menu of £1 cocktail shooters and group of pitchers. The BaaBar shooters are legendary and well worth the quid. My flatmates and I cross off those we try out on a menu at home and rate them from 1 – 5. The Assassin is quite deadly, as one would imagine, as is Brain Damage. I would personally recommend the Twilight and the Mini Mexican. They are both fantastic, and don’t skimp on the alcohol.
BaaBar is also an excellent introduction to Manchester’s Gay Village. It is low pressure, and is frequented by people of all orientations, so I would not class it as a Gay bar as such. None of my flatmates are LGBT, and we all love going from time to time, and make a note to take any visiting friends to BaaBar when they come to Manchester. Take a trip — you won’t forget it!

I love Baa Bar. It’s a longstanding love, stretching back almost ten years.
It’s cheap, it’s cheerful, it’s fun. The music is loud and cheesy. The staff are friendly and hardworking (they have to be, the queues at the bar can be rather epic). The clientele is mixed… straight people, gay people, students, the after work crowd, hen dos. You name it, they’ll be in Baa Bar.
Of course the main selling point for Baa Bar is their shots. Lots of weird and wonderful creations (Little Green Monster being a particularly lethal one) that are just begging to be tried. They do numerous offers (bottle and a shot for £2.50, etc) and a night in Baa Bar generally results in a very very sore head the next day.
Lots of fun.

Located in Manchester’s gay village, Baa Bar is one of the most gloriously trashy places you can visit.
Cheap drinks, neon décor and unashamed love of pop, Baa Bar is a welcome refuge from the pretentious venues that litter Manchester.
It can be quite cosy when it’s full on the weekend, but strangely, this somehow makes it more fun — whoever wanted to dance to Girls Aloud in an empty room?
Cheap and cheerful it may be, but that feels like something of a disservice to the place.
Essentially, if you want to get your kicks without worrying about being overly cool, Baa Bar is a must-​visit.
This is the kind of place that gives you blisters on your feet and a vicious hangover. You wouldn’t want it any other way.
It’s straight friendly (by which, no-​one is really fussed about what you are)… once you get passed the grumpy door staff.

This is the only Baa Bar I like, but my opinion could be distorted due to the fact that I only ever visit in the course of the medic pub crawls. It’s usually packed, but in the good way where the atmosphere is electric and the feeling lively.
The service is good as there are a few bars and the staff are capable of juggling multiple orders at once. The prices are fairly good, seemingly cheaper than the one in Fallowfield and I’d imagine the one in the Locks, so it’s a good stop-​off or end, depending on where you’re going and the state you’re in.

I was watching E4 the other day and a programme called RuPaul’s Drag Race came on. Modelled on the same format as various Tyra Banks fashion related shows, it instead had competing drag queens and it was so much more fun. Fabulous, even.
Baa Bar is pretty fabulous, but I’m not sure its even predominantly gay people who visit any more. Straight people, like me, go for the atmosphere– yes, you can pose but you can have fun too is the revelation in the gay village, as opposed to other bars and clubs where people try desperately to appear like they’re not having a good time.
You’ll know Baa bar by its ridiculously bright décor and its shots. Wowee. I have a friend who likes to see how much money he’s got left and get the bartender to just line up the shots. He would just DIE in here. This is where you want to be if you are already tipsy but need that little something to get you to the falling over-​demanding piggy back-​shouty feeling. Get there and then move on, my friends, move on …

The fact that the sign post for Canal Street has had the C and S scratched off shows how much of the sense of humour the guys in the gay village have got.
This strong sense of myrth probably also has much to do with the Sackville St Baa Bar trying to «out gay» everything else within a ten mile radius.
As if its predecessor over on Deansgate Locks wasn’t luminous enough, this Baa is a complete parody of pink neon and rainbow stripes taken to the Nth degree, and then taken that little bit further.
In for a penny in for a pound I suppose.
I don’t know why, but I quite like this Baa Bar. I think it’s got something to do with the absence of the threat of violence– a favourite ingrediant in other Baa Bar recipies– making the garish colours seem less ironic and juxtaposed and instead more… colourful?

I really do like this Baa Bar!
It’s located right next to Canal Street, and the downstairs area at weekends plays a range of pop, cheese and musical numbers :)
Although the dance floor is quite small, it doesn’t appear to be a problem.
They have a selection of £1 shots, which are sure to take the edge off your night.