The Trafford & Hulme Branch Pub Of The Season for Spring 2014 is The Vine Inn, Manchester.
Situated on Kennedy Street, just off Princess Street near to the Town Hall, The Vine is one of the city’s oldest pubs sporting an impressive tiled frontage and stained glass windows. The pub is an excellent example of how a pub can offer a real sense of community built around it’s regulars despite being right in the heart of the city, yet still offers a warm welcome to the many visitors to our city who cross its threshold. Much of this is built around long time landlady Rachelle Stringer whose enthusiasm for life and people is infectious to both staff and customers.
Locals and visitors alike have long been able to sample excellent ales from the two handpumps crammed onto the bar of the small ground floor servery, with Timothy Taylor’s Landlord and Wychwood Hobgoblin having been the only permanent ales. However, December 2013 saw the biggest change at the pub since the original ground floor bar was expanded into the building next door in the 1970s. That expansion created the upstairs area and a cellar bar which in recent years has served as the pub’s restaurant and function area but late last year, the cellar bar was transformed into Malt & Cask – a pub within a pub.
Rather than resting on their laurels, being crowned last year’s Club of the Year seems to have inspired Flixton Conservative Club to endeavour to reach even higher levels. This drive to continually improve is one of the reasons why the club has again been selected as Club of the Year.