Charlie gives the customer back his device and deftly explains the error which led to its drop off into his tech shop. Satisfied and smiling, the tech back in his hands, the customer asks him where he’ll be able to find the business in a few months time. Charlie offers him his personal number for updates, but admits, honestly, that even he doesn’t know.
There are 30 vendors at Manchester market Hatch. Perched beneath Mancunian Way, Hatch had become a well known venue for students and locals alike, offering insta-famous grub, trending bars as well as a range of services from hairdressers to tailors, and Charlie’s tech business, Atherton Tech.
With less than a month’s notice, landowners the Bruntwood Group made the imminent decision to sell the site- giving vendors just weeks to organise new locations, inform and organise staff and move before they would be removed from the property.
Despite being told they could return under the new site, when it is incorporated under the North East STACK brand, many small and independent businesses remained frustrated
Charlie from Atherton Tech was one of them.
He said: “I’m not gonna lie, it’s been really demoralising. I think it probably if you came here in the first week, you would have seen it on everybody’s face
“It’s gone from, ‘I’ve got this to do today, and this client tomorrow’, to just thinking ‘I have literally 30 days to find somewhere completely new’ – which is almost impossible if you think about it because you’ve got the deposits down, maybe checks, solicitors all that stuff. It takes months.”
With more than 30 vendors at Hatch operating within a similar proximity to one another and needing similar sized units, what was Charlie’s search like?
Charlie said: “It’s turned into a Battle Royale on who finds what first. Three of us in here, coincidentally ended up looking at the same unit because there’s only so many units available on some of the estate agents so you’re bound to bump into each other.
“But then it’s like, Am I doing you wrong? Are you doing any one kind of thing? So it’s not nice in that sense? Yeah. There’s no way around it. You know, people use their business to mortgage the cars, whatever. So they’ve got to do what they got to do.”
Located less than a five minute walk away from the University of Manchester and Manchester Metropolitan University, for Charlie’s tech company, the ability of students to walk in has boosted his sales and he was content with the site prior to the midnight announcement of its closure.
Vincent Tao, the founder of Sneakerpharm has gained acclaim across Manchester and the UK for his unique business. Sneakerpharm focuses on getting much loved as well as premium trainers and collectables up to scratch, but he says he’d been eyeing up alternatives for some time.
He said: “Can I say I was surprised? Probably not, it was on the rumour mill for a long time. Most of the trader’s kind of had an inkling that it was on the cards but also not really, like we didn’t expect that it would be this quick
Vincent says he’s glad he was looking elsewhere and has managed to secure a new place.
“I had a whole year, but everyone else hasn’t and they have to make a decision super quick, which could make or break their business in the coming year which they spent four years building upon.
“So imagine you know, working your ass off for four years, building something and thinking that you’ve kind of got something and then all of a sudden it’s like, you’ve got to make a decision now that would influence what’s going to happen to your business you’ve been building for years and it’s make or break basically. I don’t have that feeling. But my friends do.”
Caroline Martins, the founder of independent Brazilian Street Food chain Riomex had loved working at Hatch. After moving to the site in February 2023, she said: “I believed in the venue and in the concept of Hatch as well. The vendors are really close and we’re all friends – the vibe is really good.”
Caroline, like the other Hatch Vendors, found out about the site’s closure with less than 30 days notice. She said: “We were not expecting it and the management staff were not expecting it either. No one knew, it was out of the blue.”
One chef from Riomex was let go after the news broke, with the other four staff moved to another location.
Caroline said: “We needed more time, I don’t know if they did everything so fast. We are losing everything but people work there and their lives depend on it so everybody lost their job.”
As the students, work colleagues, friends and families filled into the market for the evening, Caroline said: “This will be a loss for Manchester- I can’t think of another place that brings together such different parts of the city.”
