Soup Kitchen

Great location, setting and staff but they always seem to run out of something on the menu. Food needs to be covered or glassed in as I always see little bar/​midgy flies on the food.
When busy, like you’re back at school and the canteen is busy, great buzzy atmosphere.

A Manchester institution for some great old fashioned dining! The bench tables work very well for the space, never feeling too cliquey or elitist.
The décor mixes student with medieval in a very comfortable way. The beers are a little pricey but the selection is nice for the size of the bar… The soup is delicious and hearty so no disappointments there, considering the name of the place!
At night it’s a great bar, the gig space is small but probably one of the best and most intimate in the city.

Soup Kitchen really lives up to its name, with a canteen style counter serving all kinds of soups alongside other hearty dishes, served up in enamel crockery with seating provided on big long benches. They do music at night but my two recent visits have been at lunchtime.
The soups are varied and taste really nice, and all the other food looks great. Prices are reasonable too. However the service is a bit chaotic — you get your food and the server moves on, and sometimes you have to wait quite a while for someone to take your drink order or turn up and take your money.
TL;DR — Good soup, unique venue, so-​so service.

Quite a relaxed, young crowd in here on a Saturday afternoon with a scruffy-​looking art exhibition adding some quirky charm.
Other reviewers refer to other aspects of this place — the well-​stocked bar, the gig venue. However, let’s get back to what is says on the tin — Soup Kitchen, a kitchen that serves soup. So maybe 8 soups, 4 stews, 4 sandwiches, 4 salads, 4 cakes, and no printed menu, so the potential is there for much of the blackboard menu to be daily specials.
Vegetarian choice is pretty good. I had curried parsnip soup, which came with a mandatory roll and butter for £3.75. (Mandatory meaning no reductions if you skip them!) A 500ml bowl of soup was just what I needed to keep me going for the rest of my day in town. However, I wasn’t that impressed by the spicing of the soup — lots of ginger and turmeric was all I could taste, rather than more complex curry flavours.
Eat at the long benches if you are feeling sociable, or at the window stools if you’re not. I like the no-​frills format — it puts the emphasis back onto the food and the people — and I felt everyone there, staff and customers, had picked up on that ethos.
Soup Kitchen is fairly cool in my estimation, but still very welcoming. I think it is worth a try — their prices are very reasonable for food cooked from scratch, so you can’t really go wrong.

Having been here a few times. Only ever to drink never eat. This is based purely off the beverages and not foodstuffs!
This may sound a really stupid but the bar is quite tall I’m 5ft11 and it felt quite tall. I order a black currant squash and a pint of staropramen and it came to £6.30 then he did a little head jig and then it was £5.50
Wow I thought that was very pricey and to be honest I might as well have had water as the black currant was weak as anything when I asked for more they said that’s how normal people have it. I’m
Not really sure the bar staff have an idea on pricing!
This sounds like it’s a bad review and it’s not supposed to be I tried to write it sat at the table. But the music was far to loud for the time of day it was and I couldn’t t think I couldn’t hear my dad over the table a good 1.5 foot away so we finished our drinks and left. I have only ever been once before and ended up sitting on a stool in the window the first time and from memory don’t bother there very uncomfortable
If you want expensive beer and uncomfortable seats then come here!
But in all of this the atmosphere sits relatively nicely most people are full of smiles. I’ll return to try the food in the future!

There are 2 sides to Soup Kitchen. Or possibly 3.
1. A place to have a drink afternoon or evening
2. Somewhere to eat some good and reasonably priced food
3 a club /​gig venue.
Lets start with the Drink. I’m not an ale drinker but my Husband is and he always seems pretty pleased with the options available to him. For me there are plenty of Cider and rum options.
Its a sociable place, long canteen style tables and a few bar stools into the window. There isnt much standing room, but generally i’ve always managed to get a seat within around 15 minutes of being there. There are often DJs on in the evening lifting the quieter atmosphere of the day, although both are equally enjoyable.
The food menu seems to change quite often, the last time i visited it was going through a Caribbean phase. I had the goat curry which was wonderful for just £6.50…so great value for money too. And my husband, who wasn’t feeling quite so hungry had the pattie for £3.50. I’ve eaten from previous menus too and Soup Kitchen has never failed to deliver. Its not corden bleu, its not faddy, its just good hearty food that never leaves me feeling disappointed.
The club /​gig venue is downstairs, its had a bit of a change around in more recent times with the bar being moved to the back of the room and the toilets having a much needed refurb (thank you). The sound is generally good (loud though… so take your ear plugs). Its a small room (at a guess around 150 — 200 capacity) and has a lot of newer bands booked in, so if you want to catch the next big thing just pick any night at Soup Kitchen. The best thing about Soup Kitchen as a gig venue is the height of the stage. No matter how far back you stand, you’re guaranteed to get a good view!
I like the soup kitchen, the feel, the food, the drink. They change as they need to without resorting to gimmicks. This one has been around for a long time, and i expect it will continue to outlive many of the other places within the northern quarter. Good work

This place is cool, albeit it’s seriously trying to be.
First point: do not ask for a cocktail in here. My friend wanted a whisky sour and got the response «we don’t really do whisky sours.» Hm. They have a lot of liquor behind the bar for somewhere that doesn’t do cocktails. I understand it’s onerous to have all conceivable cocktail ingredients if you’re really a beer specialist (and they do seem to have a great range of beer, btw) but I do think it would be nice if bars like this at least had 3 – 4 house cocktails for those of us they don’t like beer or slightly dodgy house wine but wish to hang with our friends that do.
Bartender also struggled with our request for tap water, which was less excusable.
Meanwhile, the DJ was playing some awful music. «It’s just noise, isn’t it,» pointed out one of the crowd, while apologising for being an Old Man. But it wasn’t that we just didn’t like the music or that it was too loud, is that the sound system couldn’t take it and the sound quality/​distortion was incredibly grating. Not relaxing.
Shame really because I like the spacious layout, gig posters in the toilet, and the delicious bourbon Jonny Q kindly bestowed upon me. I’d go again if someone suggested it but given the amount of good bars in the NQ it’s not top of my list for a repeat visit/​recommendation in terms of drinking. HOWEVER the food might be a different story — the other reviews of meal-​based visits have been great so I will try to return one lunchtime.
UPDATE: went back for a Carefully Planned Festival — the music venue downstairs is one of the biggest/​most attractive in the NQ although it smells SO WRONG and nobody could work out WHAT the smell was which was even more disturbing.

Nursing a small hangover and desperately looking for some lost keys around the Northern Quarter, we needed somewhere quick, cheap and easy for lunch today.
The atmosphere at Soup Kitchen is completely welcoming and homely — big wooden tables and a huge variety of people, from families and mum’s with their babies to solo home workers and friends catching up, I don’t think anyone would feel unwelcome.
Food wise, it’s pretty much in the name. A variety of soups, stews and sandwiches, all very authentically homemade. With canteen style service, you just head up and get your tray, pay, and return to your table. I had a bowl of the sweet potato, chilli and red pepper soup and it was truly great — perfectly warming for the winter weather. The boys had soup and sandwiches, which looked delicious, but would’ve written me off for the remainder of the day!
I’ve been for music before, but I’ll be back for the food.