Best Bars: The Temple in the toilet
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.
…however it operates out of an interesting venue.
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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
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