We went down to Nancy Spains before it opened to talk to owner, Peter about what the business would bring to Manchester and why they’ve plumped for serving Murphy’s Stout rather than Guinness.
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00:00Hello and welcome to Manchester World. My name is Theo Cusenbet and today we're on our way to a brand new bar opening.
00:05Now today is April 9th, but actually this bar has been open for one day already.
00:09That was back on March 17th.
00:11We should give you a hint that this is an Irish bar.
00:14Now Nancy Spain's is what it's called and surprisingly for an Irish bar it doesn't actually do Guinness.
00:19But it does have a pretty good alternative.
00:21So I'm here with a couple of our staff members, we're going to go learn more about it and maybe have a little pint of Murphy's too.
00:27So having set up shop right on the corner of Stevenson Square, Nancy Spain's has put itself in the perfect position to take advantage of the post work beer scene.
00:36And although the outside looks a bit difficult at the minute with all the scaffolding, once you go inside it's a lovely homely atmosphere.
00:42So I sat down with one of the owners Peter O'Halloran to talk about the business and what brought them to Manchester.
00:47Nancy Spain's comes from, she was actually a lady, from Kerry, where we're from.
00:53And she immigrated to the UK back in the 1800s and she was a factory worker and she became one of the first Irish landladies in London.
01:01So that's where the name comes from, yeah.
01:03Nancy Spain's is going to bring some Irish authenticity.
01:07Following the success of our London venues, we opened up some, we saw an opening in London for authentic Irish pubs.
01:14There's a lot of Irish pubs out there, but nothing that's a piece of Ireland.
01:17So we've designed the pubs around, pubs from back where we're from in Kerry.
01:21So we spent a lot of time back in Kerry over the last couple of years, studying different pubs in rural Kerry where we're from.
01:29We just took little bits from each of them and pieced it together to make Nancy Spain's.
01:34We're behind Murphy's because we would have, back where we're from, we would have grown up drinking Murphy's as our preferred stout.
01:43So I've always preferred it, it's creamier, it's smoother and I can drink a lot more of it.
01:49I suppose with Nancy Spain's, when people think Nancy Spain's they think good times, you know.
01:55They come here expecting to have a good time.
01:57It is the Irish authenticity of the place too, it's the decor, it's the Murphy's Stout.
02:02But most importantly it's about people having a good time.
02:05Yeah, we've got four venues now, three in London, one up here.
02:09There is plans for more, nothing in the immediate future.
02:12We're just going to focus on perfecting the model that we have now and you know nothing's ever perfect.
02:18But yeah, Manchester, I've spent a bit of time up here, especially when we were younger,
02:23we used to travel over to football games in Old Trafford and I'm not a big football supporter anymore.
02:29But so we spent a lot of time up in Manchester over the last couple of years while I've been living in London
02:32and just fell in love with the city, fell in love with the Northern Quarter especially.
02:36I felt it was, you know, it has character too, it's vibrant and it just really, our brand really suited here.
02:42We also had a lot of Mancunians out in our shortage venue and we still do get a lot of Mancunians in there.
02:47They're always asking me, are we going to open up in Manchester?
02:49So we heard the calling and we answered.
02:51So there you are, come down to Nancy Spain's and give it a try yourself.