# Nexus Art cafe - a must!!



## Wookey (Mar 15, 2008)

I must just plug this fabulous place, I'm sitting in a candlelit cafe on my laptop with free wireless, eating a hummus bagel (after my lentil soup and bread) and listening to a live didgereedoo and acoustic guitar band called Troubador, whilst all around people are scribbling their artwork on pieces of paper to hang on the walls.

It's lovely, relaxed, cheap, warm, sensual, and I would recommend it if ever you fancy a decent brew in the Northern Quarter.

http://www.nexusonline.org.uk/nightcafe.html


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## Jambooboo (Mar 15, 2008)

Sounds like petite bourgeoisie shite to me.

I was in Manchester centre today - had me a 79p tuna & cucumber sandwich from Aldi for my lunch. While I were eating it outside a pigeon shat on me.


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## Wookey (Mar 16, 2008)

Jambooboo said:


> Sounds like petite bourgeoisie shite to me.



It's a indie community-run cafe staffed by volunteers, which hangs your art on the walls if you merely ask them to, and which has acoustic open mike spots in the afternoons to allow hopeful young musicians to try their stuff out on a veggie-munching audience.

You can't touch it with your mass-produced rubber-tasting dolphin-killing ocean-rape sandwich sold by a foreign multinational on my streets, covered in guano or no.


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## Fledgling (Mar 16, 2008)

I'll check it out if you can assure me they do proper food. Hummus bagel, lentil soup?? I've noticed that Manchester cafes have a negative correlation between the quality of tea on offer and the quality of food on offer. Is it really too much to ask for bacon sandwiches AND rooibos?


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## cyberfairy (Mar 16, 2008)

Fledgling said:


> I'll check it out if you can assure me they do proper food. Hummus bagel, lentil soup?? I've noticed that Manchester cafes have a negative correlation between the quality of tea on offer and the quality of food on offer. Is it really too much to ask for bacon sandwiches AND rooibos?



In thedaytime they do Pieminister pies


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## Wookey (Mar 16, 2008)

Fledgling said:


> I'll check it out if you can assure me they do proper food. Hummus bagel, lentil soup?? I've noticed that Manchester cafes have a negative correlation between the quality of tea on offer and the quality of food on offer. Is it really too much to ask for bacon sandwiches AND rooibos?



You can get both at Nexus!! The tea menu is extravagant.


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## Kidda (Mar 16, 2008)

im confused

is this place run by a church?


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## Wookey (Mar 17, 2008)

Kidda said:


> im confused
> 
> is this place run by a church?



No, why?


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## Fledgling (Mar 17, 2008)

Wookey said:


> You can get both at Nexus!! The tea menu is extravagant.



Right, I'll go tomorrow to break up my library day and check it out, the tea will be carefully scrutinised.


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## Kidda (Mar 17, 2008)

Wookey said:


> No, why?



oh just all the god stuff on the website i thought it might have been one of those spin off 'save the pill head' things that the World Wide message tribe/eden project were threatening to do with cameron dante. 

they reel you in with tea and soon enough they are quoting the bible


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## Wookey (Mar 17, 2008)

Kidda said:


> oh just all the god stuff on the website i thought it might have been one of those spin off 'save the pill head' things that the World Wide message tribe/eden project were threatening to do with cameron dante.
> 
> they reel you in with tea and soon enough they are quoting the bible



OMG well spotted!!



> Nexus is a unique space within the Northern Quarter of Manchester City Centre. It was opened in 2005 by the Methodist Church working in conjunction with Sanctus1.
> 
> Nexus is now the primary meeting place for Sanctus1. It also operates as a night cafe, the base for the city centre churches street angels project and a number of artists use nexus for music and dance worshops. Nexus also has quarterly art exhibitions, a recording studio and will be opening as a cafe early in 2008.



They kept that well hidden, all the printed literature I read just said 'community project'. Mmmm. I have to say, you can't spot these Christians just by looking, can you??


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## Wookey (Mar 17, 2008)

Fledgling said:


> Right, I'll go tomorrow to break up my library day and check it out, the tea will be carefully scrutinised.



Enjoy the tea! But don't get converted.


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## Kidda (Mar 17, 2008)

@wookey 

fucking classic


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## ddraig (Mar 17, 2008)

the sly fuckers (undercover botherers of god) were trying to set one up here in Cardiff  with the pretence of it being for people who'd lost their mates whilst out clubbing or needed a cuppa etc


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## Wookey (Mar 18, 2008)

ddraig said:


> the sly fuckers (undercover botherers of god) were trying to set one up here in Cardiff  with the pretence of it being for people who'd lost their mates whilst out clubbing or needed a cuppa etc



That's it! They said it was a night cafe for calling a taxi from!!

The man who serves the tea is a Christian, who is featured in the YouTube video on their site. Bloody hell, I thought I'd found a little independant caf to have a brewski in, and in turns out it's less independent than McD's! At least with McD's you know you're getting a proselytising foreign invader, they don't try to hide it.


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## Wookey (Mar 18, 2008)

Kidda said:


> @wookey
> 
> fucking classic



I'm well embarrassed. Can't go there again now, unless I try to convert the fuckers back again.


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## Kidda (Mar 18, 2008)

haha bless you.

it does seem like a nice place though  

recommend anywhere else in the northern quarter?, ive got to take a couple of service users out for a coffee to chill them out a bit on thursday and im really stuck for ideas. id rather not do starbucks or cafe nero its boring.


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## chio (Mar 18, 2008)

I was about to say  

The write up on Manchester Confidential says 



> There is an element of spirituality, after all this is a partnership with the adjoined Methodist church, however don’t expect a bible bash with your pie and mash. It’s just there if you want it



Can't see much of a problem with it myself; I'm not religious but given a choice between boring old Costa/Nero etc and this place, I'd choose Nexus, been in a couple of times and been impressed. Despite their Methodist ties, they've put together something that's not overly commercial in a city that really, really needs some more independent spaces as an antidote to the endless fucking corporate glass towers that are going up everywhere. At least it's not distastefully insidious like that "youth" radio station in Stoke that pulls people in by offering exam advice and stuff then blasts them out with Christian rock


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## Wookey (Mar 18, 2008)

Well, it's so _not_ insidious, I've been in three or four times and never even noticed the religious aspect! (Or does that make it extra-insidious??)

(Conversely, I once went into a cafe in Lincoln that served Jesus Fish and Chips, with little cross motif on every page of the menu!!That's where I like my Christians - where you can see them....)

I'd hate to think any profits from my tea and scones went into proselytising Christianity, I'm anti-theist, so I really couldn't go in there again without contravening my principles, which is a shame because I liked the space and the atmos.


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## Wookey (Mar 18, 2008)

Kidda said:


> haha bless you.
> 
> it does seem like a nice place though
> 
> recommend anywhere else in the northern quarter?, ive got to take a couple of service users out for a coffee to chill them out a bit on thursday and im really stuck for ideas. id rather not do starbucks or cafe nero its boring.



Almost certainly and without a doubt Night and Day cafe, Oldham Street.

http://www.nightnday.org/

It's funky and interesting during the day, and does nice coffee and tea, etc.


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