EXCLUSIVELY VEGGIE DAYTIME EATERIES IN CENTRAL MANCHESTER
Since the café bar explosion in the mid 90's The GREENHOUSE has become an evening opening restaurant. However we do still continue to open during the day serving our à la carte menu whenever possible by prior arrangement (preferably with at least 24 hours notice so we can arrange for staff and during the winter months put the heating on in adequate time. Occasionally we are able to accept bookings at short notice, so it is always worth a phone call) with the great advantage that our on street parking is FREE!

Close to Oxford Road Station you will find The Thirsty Scholar. Earlier this year, Martin of ModPop Café fame opened the kitchen for vegetarian and vegan food. Open daily from 12 noon until 7pm. Families with young children are welcome but should be clear of the premises by 6pm. Click on the adjacent picture to visit their website. I usually manage to visit here at least once a week. Last week I noticed the prices had inceased slightly, my favourite, the 'Double Brunchfast with Wedges' had increased from £5.95p to £ 6.50p. There is a large sheltered outside seating area (underneath the railway arch) where both smoking and dogs are permitted. Disabled access BUT beware the cobbles! To the best of my knowledge this is the only central Manchester exclusively vegetarian eatery which is licensed. Martin is also happy to do outside catering.

Earlier this month, in Manchester's Northern Quarter, Earth Café, located down a flight of steps in the basement below the Buddhist Centre at 16/20 Turner Street, Manchester M4 1DZ re-opened with a revised format. There is a lift from the Buddhist Centre down to the basement but as there are still steps to negiotate from street level to ground floor, disabled access is difficult. Opening hours: Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays 11am - 4pm; Tuesdays and Fridays 11am - 8pm; Saturdays and Sundays 10am - 4pm. In addition to serving it's excellent range of vegan food the café will be used as a venue for a wide range of events. I've added Earth Café to my regular weekly visit list. Further details can be found on their Facebook Business Page by clicking on the adjacent photograph.

Heading south along Oxford Road towards Rusholme is the well established (40th Anniversary the end of this month) Eighth Day Vegetarian Shop with it's basement café. In addition to the stairs there is also a lift for disabled access to the café. Opening Mondays to Fridays from 9am until 7pm and on Saturdays from 9.30am until 4.30pm. I usually manage to enjoy my lunch here at least once a week when I can combine my visit with some shopping.

Best of Manchester Poets
'Best of Manchester Poets, Volume 1' joins Dominic Berry's, 'Tomorrow, I Will Go Dancing' in our small, growing library of books of poems available for sale at The GREENHOUSE. For further details of BoMP please click on the picture. Many of the contributors attend the monthly Animal Writes meeting, a friendly social group for animal lovers who want to share creative writing (not necessarily about animals - could be about anything!) in poetry or prose which is currently being held at The GREENHOUSE on the last Sunday of each month from 3pm until 5pm. There's a summer break during August, the next meeting being scheduled for Sunday 26th September, commencing 3pm.

BEER AND CIDER CHANGES
The 13th May 2010 saw the introduction of the Chinese Lucky Buddha Lager which with it's crisp pilsner style flavour has got off to a flying start, it's distinctive sculptured bottle becoming something of a collector's item with our diners. A Chicago glassblower, Nick Paul, has recycled the bottles turning them into stunning glasses. To share in the enjoyment of his artistry please click on the picture of the bottle.This has effectively replaced the Polish Okochim Lager in our line up which has been discontinued by our supplier.

Our first draught cider, a 'Limited Edition', Westons Cider Twist Raspberry, English, still, medium dry, 4% (2.4 units per pint) was introduced in May 2010. This was quickly followed in June with Westons Old Rosie Cloudy Scrumpy, English, still, medium dry, 7.3%. Both tick most boxes being suitable for vegans and coeliacs and are available now! This has resulted in the birth of our very tasty, lightly carbonated GREENHOUSE Snakebite, a 50/50 blend of Westons Cider Twist Raspberry and Timmermans Strawberry Beer (4%, vegan).

A worthy addition to our draught line up is Grolsch Premium Lager, vegan, 5%. Currently supplied to us as a 'special', initial stocks will probably run dry early August. Sales to date have been brisk, so if we can find a reliable source we will continue to stock it.

The much loved Bateman's Hop Bine Organic Bitter has unfortunately gone AWOL yet again but will hopefully re-appear in the Autumn. Tragically, our residual stock has been exhausted.
During the quiet season until the end of September draught beer kegs larger than 30 litre take too long to turnover so our line up has been changed to the following 3 beers. Hoegaarden (5.0%) a naturally cloudy white wheat beer from Belgium, Menabrea 1846 (4.8%) a pale lager from Italy it's secret being the water of Biella which is almost mineral free and finally our most recent addition, Timmerman's Strawberry (4.0%) a Belgium esoteric specialty lambic fruit beer spontaneously fermented using the natural micro organisms in the air around Brussels, no yeast being added! Early indications are that this is on target to be our top seller.

We have mounted the dispense head badges for the beers and ciders currently on line on the wall dividing the front and back of the restaurant. Early in October we plan on replacing the Menabrea 1846 with Küppers Kölsch (4.8%) with its crisp, dry, distinctive taste from Cologne, for a month or two.

LARGE MANCHESTER
We were reviewed in issue 13, May 2010 of Large Manchester on pages 22/23. Interestingly, we received an 8/10 rating whereas Green's (pages 24/25) only got a 7/10! Just think what we could maybe achieve if we had the funds for a facelift! For full details please click here.

FACEBOOK
We have a growing business page on Facebook as "The Greenhouse Licensed Vegetarian and Vegan Restaurant" which was started during the run up to the Festive Season 2009. This is considerably more interactive than our website and we are likely to develop it more and more as we get to grips with the technicalities and facilities. Following requests, we added a review section in February 2010.

As the pages on our website are updated a Facebook link will be added below the navigation buttons on the left hand side of each page. For further details please click on link below

STARLIGHTZ LAMPSHADES
Many diners have expressed interest in our Starlightz lampshades. Not only do they add to the restaurant atmosphere they work well with the mini spiral low energy light bulbs helping to reduce our carbon footprint. The first shade was a Christmas present in 2006. An immediate love relationship developed but it took over 12 months to locate a source of similar shades. As our existing fireglow bulbs fail we are replacing the fittings with alternating 'Mia Orange' and 'Festival Pink' shades. Please click on picture for full details.

DISOS WINES DISCONTINUED
Disos, the much loved, vegan, additive free range of French Wines was discontinued a few years ago. Tony Boffey, the driving force behind Disos commented that the escalating bonded warehouse and other costs meant that Disos was no longer cost effective in the UK retail market place. Whilst they could probably still be sold through restaurants, that accounted for a very small section of their market. Tragically our stocks were exhausted shortly after St Valentine's Day 2010. We plan on introducing a range of organic wines from Vintage Roots a limited number of which are already available although not on our printed menu as yet. Just ask about organic vegan wines!

RECIPES IN VERSE
The first four, of hopefully, many recipes in verse have been finished. These are:

Broccoli and Leek Soup
Chunky Vegetable Soup
Hummous
Spanish Chick Peas

RE-VAMPED MENUS
Towards the end of February we re-printed our à la carte food and drinks menus for the first time in nearly 3 years. There have been quite a few changes both in content and prices. Some prices have gone up while others remain unchanged and a few have actually gone down. The updates to the food menus on this website were completed on the 1st March. For full details please click here.

Menus don't remain static for long! On the 4th March we added a further 2 flavours, 'Sour Cherry' and 'Plum' to our range of dairy free cheesecakes. The choice of luxury dairy ice creams has also been increased to chocolate, strawberry and vanilla.

St. VALENTINE'S DAY 2010
St Valentine's Day 2010 has been hailed as a success, albeit with some extreme pressure on staff for an hour or so starting around 9pm! It's a sad fact that 75% of the late afternoon bookings either cancelled or failed to turn up, none of whom had paid a deposit! (We relaxed the rule this year as we got close to the day and it was difficult for diners to get a deposit to us in time. Next year it will be a strict no deposit no booking!) However, it was a 100% record from 6pm onwards with some additional late night bookings made on the night! Thank you all! Watch out for some menu changes towards the end of February. The photograph on the right illustrates the St. Valentine's Day and the Chinese New Year combined celebrations at the restaurant for 2010.

PICTURE GALLERY OF MAINCOURSE DISHES
For some time we have been considering a picture gallery of a selection of the dishes from our menu. The initial page contains a selection of our maincourse dishes. For picture clarity we have generally omitted gravies and sauces. The selection will be increased as more pictures become available. For further details please click here. The early version of this didn't work properly in Internet Explorer but this has now been rectified and should be working in all browsers. Anyone experiencing problems, feedback would be appreciated. Pictures of starters and desserts will hopefully follow shortly.

GREENHOUSE POTTED HISTORY
The Greenhouse started in '83 as a daytime café/restaurant and restaurant in the evenings. Our opening hours, particularly during the day were expanded in the early '90s but the café bar revolution killed the weekday daytime trade throughout Rusholme so that since the late '90s we've operated as just an evening restaurant (when possible we still open during the day by prior arrangement). Our evening trade has been eroded by meat restaurants providing veggie options particularly with mixed groups of meat eaters and veggies. Some of this was covered by Neil Roland in the South Manchester Reporter. For link to article please click here.

OPENING HOURS
We open daily at 6.30pm, last booking 9.30pm (9pm on Sundays) and being in a residential area work to an 11.30pm (previously 11pm BUT still 10.30pm on Sundays) curfew (except for certain special days ie New Year's Eve, St Valentine's Day etc). From 9pm onwards once the restaurant is empty with no advance bookings we will close. We are often able to accept casual diners without a booking up to 9pm. Subject to advance notice, we often able to open up to an hour earlier in the evenings.

Except for the weekends our daytime trade died back in the late '90s but even that has died now. When possible, we plan to continue opening during the day for advance bookings. Preferably at least 24 hours notice but we are sometimes able to accomodate diners at short notice (always worth a phone call). Please click here for details.

PRICE INCREASES
Each year beers and wines are usually subjected to a double price increase, the annual price increase around February/March and the 'Exchequer' increase around March/April. In 2009 we were also hit with a substantial exchange rate increase due to the falling Pound against the Dollar and Euro. This latter has had quite an effect on other prices notably fruit and vegetables from Spain and Holland.

Our wine list is going through some major changes with a revised selection of wines from Australia, Chile and South Africa with an improved range of both red and white wines. A lot of our beers are Euro based mainly from Belgium and Germany. Their popularity is such that we shall continue with them.

BROADLAND WINES
Please note that until such time as the future of the Greenhouse has been settled we will not be replacing our stocks of Broadland Wines. From just Elderberry 25 years ago we have carried all 27 Broadland wines and the Lea Cottage Punch. Except for the 2 meads which are suitable for vegetarians all the others are suitable for vegans. However, Broadland do also bottle some of their range under the Gales label which are more readily available in smaller quantities. So for the time being we are carrying a reduced stock of these as follows:

STREETSMART
We commenced supporting StreetSmart in November 2003. StreetSmart funds a range of homeless charities - some provide shelter and food, while others focus on long term needs, such as job training and counselling. There were two main aspects which appealed to us, all money raised in Manchester stays in Manchester and as all production and administration costs are covered, currently by Harvey Nichols, Manchester Evening News and Forward, every penny raised is spent on the homeless. A voluntary £1 is added to each bill which to date only two people in seven years have declined to pay. In fact, many diners have made very favourable comments about the campaign sometimes offering additional contributions.

GREENHOUSE GIFT VOUCHERS
Our gift vouchers, which have been available on request since 1998, have been redesigned and are now readily available in denominations of £5 up to £100 in £5 increments. For further details please (click here).

SPECIALITY HOT DRINKS
Over the years we have played around with many different hot drink systems. Customer demand fluctuates wildly. Our requirements call for a machine with a small footprint which requires minimal maintenance which will tolerate infrequent use and still produce a consistent high quality drink. We think we've found the answer and our menu offers espresso, carte noire, spiced chai tea, cappuccino and latte as additions to our range of hot beverages. However this only scratches the surface of the range of hot drinks which are now available, we could fill a menu with them. If you don't see what you're looking for please ask, you may get a pleasant surprise!

SERVICE CHARGE
When the National Minimum Wage was introduced in 1999 we were faced with a financial shortfall. Our solution was to introduce a flexible shift finishing time. In order to recompense staff for what became a feast and famine scenario we introduced a 10% service charge across the board to be divided weekly between our casual staff pro rata to the number of hours worked. Tips on the other hand are divided by casual staff at the end of each shift. For further details and history please click here.

FREE WI-FI
During early May 2008 we installed a Wi-Fi network which is available free of charge to customers. Anyone wishing to use the system should ask a member of staff for the current network identity and password. For security purposes these are changed daily.

GLAMORGAN SAUSAGES
We've taken a step back in time to the days when we made a soft fill glamorgan sausage but with a slight difference as this time we are char sealing and not using egg. The filling now contains more vegetables and less wheat. As with our original glamorgan sausages the overall flavour is very leek and cheesy with a hint of mustard.

DAIRY FREE ICE CREAM
We added Swedish Glace's 'Wild Blueberry' to our range of dairy free ice creams at the beginning of May 2008, which with the 'Smooth Vanilla', 'Rich Chocolate' and 'Juicy Raspberry' gives us a line up of 4 again.

SELF-CATERING IN FRANCE
Heather and Steve Foster, both veggies, who together with their 2 children and cat, run Le Mimosa, a traditional stone built, 2 bedroom cottage located adjacent to their own home in Les Puechs. The accomodation which can sleep up to 6 people is available to rent throughout the year and is fully vegan friendly, no leather, feathers or wool. They have a comprehensive website with full information and some cracking pictures. Please click on picture for details.

Les Puechs, a small hamlet in the Gard region of the Lanquedoc is some 1200 ft above sea level situated a tad inland between Montpellier and Marseille.

3D JAZZ MUSICIANS
Many diners have taken an interest in our 3 3D illuminated pictures of Jazz Musicians playing piano, saxophone and trumpet. They have a white LED spot light mounted on the top of the frame powered by a built in 4.5 volt battery pack which also incorporates a socket to take a mains adaptor. The effect is still excellent with the light off. We're in the process of having a single lead made to connect the 3 together in parallel using a mains adaptor. Ours were puchased locally in Rusholme but are no longer available from our source. However, I've since found them on the Internet for some 20% less than we paid. Please click on picture for full details.

ONGOING HALLOWEEN SPECIALS
We introduced 2 additional main courses for the Halloween period:
Butternut squash and mixed nut roast (vegan)
Roast pumpkin and goat's cheese pie
In view of their popularity these dishes will probably be continued until the end of the year if not longer.

SMOKING POLICY
The Greenhouse policy on smoking has varied slightly over the years. We have always had a smoke free section BUT since 1997 we have been non smoking throughout the restaurant. However, since 1st July 2007 with the change in law we are totally non smoking under any circumstances. Smoking will still be permitted under the veranda at the front of the restaurant BUT no longer in the porch which is classed as an enclosed area.

DISCOUNTS & SPECIAL PROMOTIONS
Students and members of the Vegetarian or Vegan Societies are entitled to a 10% discount on all meals and drinks purchased except after 5pm on Saturdays and certain booking only days (typically 24th December - 1st January, Valentine's Day, Mothers Day etc). The discount must be claimed prior to the issue of the bill and on production of a valid student ID card, Greenhouse Student Card or membership card per diner. The bill will be reduced pro rata to the number of qualifying diners.

Booking 24 hours or more in advance (1 - 4 people) opens the door to our special promotion designed to save diners up to 50% off our à la carte menu using the "2 for 1" voucher available from this web site (currently at the foot of this page). This replaces and is far superior to our previous early doors promotion (PEDS).

Our Greenhouse Student Card was introduced in October 2001. Initially students could download special vouchers from this site BUT since January 2002 we now e-mail the vouchers direct to card holders. As the word spreads, the number of students coming onboard has accelerated and as from March 2002 has overtaken the levels we previously achieved with Snapfax. For further details please (click here).

PRINTER FRIENDLY PAGES
Over the coming months we will work through this web site producing printer friendly options for many of the pages and features on the site. An example is the 2 for 1 voucher at the bottom of this page or the Starters, Main Courses, Desserts or Sundries pages from the Food Menu section of this site.

CREDIT AND DEBIT CARDS
Except for American Express and Diners Club, we accept most major credit and debit cards.

Since the end of January 2005 most credit and debit card transactions have been confirmed using a PIN number rather than a signature. Our new terminal was installed on the 19th December 2003. This is a small hand held unit which is taken to the table. If the card presented by a diner is configured for PIN authorisation, the terminal will ask for the diner to enter their PIN number (like at a cash machine - we cannot see the number nor is it recorded on our system).

This is all part of a major step to cut down on card fraud. This system has been in use on the continent and many other countries for some years with considerable success.