Another Hand closes in Manchester amid hospitality squeeze
The modern British restaurant on Deansgate Mews shut with immediate effect on 22 September, its owners citing the sector's steep challenges.
Another Hand Manchester closed with immediate effect on 22 September, the modern British restaurant's owners citing the "steep challenges" facing UK hospitality.
The 24-seat restaurant on Deansgate Mews was run by Julian Pizer and Max Yorke, who had previously worked together at other Manchester kitchens including Edinburgh Castle and Hispi before opening their own room. Another Hand built a following on a short, ingredient-led menu of modern British cooking in a compact space that never sat more than two dozen covers.
The pair announced the closure in a statement to staff and customers. "Unfortunately, as most of us know, the current economic climate for the hospitality sector is facing steep challenges, sadly a familiar story," they wrote. "And after five years of operating within this increasingly challenging environment, we feel it's time for us to step away." They thanked their team, suppliers, producers and customers before closing the statement.
Five years, a 24-seat room, and an economic climate the owners call a familiar story.
Five years on Deansgate Mews
Pizer and Yorke built Another Hand's reputation on consistency in a small room rather than expansion, a model that kept costs contained but left little room to absorb a bad month. No detail has been given on what either owner does next.
The restaurant's exit leaves Deansgate Mews, a small cluster of independent openings behind Manchester's main shopping stretch, with one fewer name at a time when several of its neighbours are also under pressure. The mews built its identity on exactly this kind of small, chef-led room, which makes each closure more visible than an equivalent loss on a larger high street.
A wider squeeze on UK hospitality
Another Hand Manchester's closure lands inside a broader pattern. UK hospitality sites closed at a rate of roughly twenty a day between March and June this year, according to NIQ's Hospitality Market Monitor, even as a similar number of new sites opened over the same period. Independent restaurants with narrow margins and small covers counts are the most exposed to that churn, since a handful of quiet weeks in a 24-seat room does more damage than the same run would do to a larger site with more tables to absorb it.
Deansgate Mews has not announced a replacement for the site, and neither owner has said publicly what comes next.
