Spanning 12,000 sq ft, House of Social is billed as a collection of independent kitchens that will ‘showcase a range of both homegrown talent and incoming operators’ and will be positioned beneath student housing.
Within the First Street development, the project is being overseen by Jake Atkinson who was previously operations manager for the company behind Manchester food halls Mackie Mayor and Altrincham Market.
The operators have yet to be revealed but will include ‘some much loved regional brands bringing new ideas to the table as well as a cult London outfit’.
Manchester is already home to a large number of food hall concepts including Freight Island, Hello Oriental, New Century and the aforementioned Mackie Mayor and Altrincham Market.
“It’s such an untapped location, we’ve got this beautiful building with loads of natural light from soaring arched windows and also some gorgeous interior details with that curving staircase - it’s going to have so much character,” Atkinson says.
“We’ve tried to match that with the traders we’re working with - we’ve got some big names and some big personalities coming along - they’re creating menus which work in a food hall setting but with so much more attention to detail than anything I’ve seen before in this space. The offerings will really complement each other but I also think the traders are going to gel well too.”
Founded in 2012, Vita says it is on a mission to reinvent student accommodation and has a presence in the UK and Spain with a total of 28 locations in 13 cities.