One Eight Six, the Deansgate basement bar which caught fire on New Year’s Eve 2021, is gearing up to re-open after a huge £1.5 million renovation. The bar, owned by singer Dean Mac, is aiming to throw open the doors at the end of April.
Mac is also simultaneously refitting a brand new bar location in Didsbury, on the site of the former restaurant Cau in the village. Both projects have been significantly delayed due to various issues, from lockdown to insurance to building materials. But he now says he can see the light at the end of the tunnel.
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Speaking to the Manchester Evening News, he said: “We're coming back bigger, better and stronger. [The fire] was a nightmare. It put everything on hold, and put the [Didsbury] site back even further. We want to get Deansgate open first, as it’s the flagship.
There have been a few whispers about me not coming back, or we're moving to a new location, but that's not the case at all. If everything goes to plan, it should open in the next couple of months. It's taken about £1.5 million to get it back to how we want it.
“The level of damage was that it needed taking completely and utterly back to brick. We had to rip the entire place out, and that was partly to do with the fire, but mainly to do with smoke damage.
“It just absolutely ruined everything, so we had to completely rip the whole thing back to brick and start again.”
The fire broke out just after midnight on January 1, 2022, with 170 people having to be evacuated after decorations caught fire. Mac praised the ‘brave’ staff at the bar who kept customers safe and ‘saved lives’ on the night.
He said in a statement in the days afterwards: “We cannot put into words how deeply excruciatingly painful this is to be writing, but the fire that broke out just after midnight on NYE has completely destroyed the main room and the majority of the contents within.
"We will be forever grateful to all our brave staff and the emergency services that saved peoples lives night, and no matter what material items are gone, everyone is safe.”
The upscale barber’s shop above the Deansgate bar, Ruger, run by Alan and Reece Beak, will also be reopening when the bar does. “They’d been open only five weeks before the fire, and they were smoke damaged too,” Mac went on. “So they’re very eager to get back open.”
The Didsbury bar will follow the opening of the Deansgate site in the summer.
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