Cup, Manchester

Been here a few times over the last year whenever I am in Manchester, I really like the Northern Quarter (better than the Southern Third) this place has free WI-FI which is handy. I like the concept but I have found the service to be very inconsistent. I was there last week at 10am, they were no more than 1/3rd full, they brought over a black coffee when I had ordered a cappuccino 15 minutes after I paid. The scrambled eggs on a bagel with mushrooms and vege rashers, took 30 minutes to arrive and was lukewarm. 3 staff behind the counter but no one ever looks like they are in charge even the Jesus looking bloke who works there sometimes and calls all the girls 'Luv’ (and the bin men!)
No 'Good Morning’ for me when I arrived or 'Thanks’ when I left, and this has happened a few times before, this place is not cheap its not much to ask for. Love Saves The Day shut down next door so they have a monopoly in this area and should clean up. Just found out the Buddhist 'Earth’ cafe nearby opens at 9am now for healthy breakfasts maybe I’ll try that until Mr Scruff pulls his finger out to drive this excellent concept further.
Maybe I got it wrong, maybe Mr Scruff is trying to be as eclectic with his service at Cup as he is with his Dj sets. The Revolution starts here!

UPDATE 25th May 2009.

Went into Cup last week, things no better. Ordered a pot of tea for 2 and a piece of carrot cake, tea arrived in pot pretty quickly BUT they had forgot to put teabags inside!! and forgot carrot cake. 3 people behind counter no other customers at counter - laughing and joking to themsleves!

Beat the Starbucks!(or Costa). I have no idea why people in town go to Starbucks. Cup is much better than any high street coffee shops. They have much nice atmosphere and much quieter and still locates in town centre. I normally have a cuppa with my boyfriend and they give us a generous size of tea pot. The cake tastes really good too.I also love the display. They display lots of nice cups and you can actually buy them!Many customers are very nice dress style so I personally like to see their fashion too!

Bloody Hell yet another so called “TRENDY” coffee shop which incidently isn’t all that :o( Manchester is turning into a city of coffee shops and nowt else? where the hell can you buy a can opener, mop bucket in city centre now I ask you??

Entered the 'Bake off’ as part of Manchester Food and Drink Festival…fantastic night, free tea, great atmosphere and guess what? I won the 'Most Delicious’ category with my chocolate nut brownies! The prize? A promise to put them on the menu for 12 mths and receive 10% of the profit! Fantastic! NOT! It was obviously a publicity stunt and they have ignored me ever since…not only poor service on a day to day basis that many customers have complained about!

Seeing as there are many (mostly justified!) negative thoughts about Cup, I’ll start with a positive… the cakes are bloomin’ lovely.

On the negative… the worst scrambled eggs I’ve eaten in my life! Such a simple thing to ask for, and I got dry, flavourless rubbish on a completely cremated bagel, my knife could barely cut through it.

Def better places in Northern Quarter to go for lunch.

oh dear such young staff who presumabley rent in chorlton didsbury or trendy flats in town thus feel they are uber cool bohos above niceties like hello . they are just rubbish waiters in a overhyped sanwich bar. visually its great. coffee is great and mr scruffs merchandising good. thats were it ends…. if these clowns werent out all nite posing in noho and moho on their meagre wages and pretending to be real mancs we,d get some actual service ( eg giving us what we pay for )(before xmas).....dont go in here until mr scruff fires them all and hires normal people.

Oh how I laughed with familiarity when reading these reviews for Cup. As with several other places in the exceedingly over-trendy Northern Quarter, this place is very nice on the surface, but suffers from a complete lack of organisation and staff management. As you sit waiting (and waiting) for your lunch (which could potentially be a tasty Pieminister pie, if you’re lucky), you can just see it happening - people not writing things down, one person looking like they’re in charge but not really doing anything except saying sorry when something goes wrong (again), general haphazard goings on that culminate in you receiving your dessert (a complimentary Tunnock’s teacake) as an apology before you get your dinner.
All in all, it’s okay, but there’s stiff competition out there. All they need to do is organise and plan things a bit better and it would be great.

I wanted tea and a snack,not a hard request for a cafe , did get both but 35 minutes apart. The tired faux amateurish decor was blown out of the water by the apparent amateurish service. Like so much of the Northern Quarter this place seems to be laboring under the delusion that its Greenwich Village or the Left Bank, but in one i would expect excellent food and the other excellent service, Cup failed to produce either. Its all been done before-much much better.

Went to Cup for a cup of tea and then returned a couple of hours later for lunch because we thought it was lovely!

Staff were really friendly, thought the food was delicius and love the interior, really laid back and quirky. Would definitely reccomend popping in.

Only downside was the coffee machine was broken!

The worst cafe ever, rubbish ignorant staff. We were the only people in there 10 am on saturday, we ordered 2 teas and 2 veggie sausage butties and paid for them, One girl behind the counter did not know what food they had or operate the till, the other 2 girls just stared out of the window. We soon got our teas, more people came in this point it was 10.30, I asked how long our butties would be and if we can have them to take out, 1 of the girls replied would be 5 minuets. Other people received their food, we kept looking to see where our food was at this point it was 10.45 still nothing not even an apology. We got up and walked out. I would not recommend the dive to anyone!!

Its not really the worst cafe EVER is it… i love it in there, i think because they make every order from fresh people who order cake and a bre get theirs quicker. Its worth the wait for a nice fresh lunch though!!

This place is good. You do wonder how many more coffee shops the NQ, and Thoma St in particular, can support. But when they’re good, funky and different like this, I guess there could be no limit. It’s certainly well visited whenever I’m in there.

This is a great place to hang out and unwind after a day at work. They provide free WIFI and an good selection of food and drink. The staff are friendly and helpful.

They recently held a 'bake off’ competition, which was a good laugh!

On a slightly negative side, the toilets were a bit of a mess…

This is such a cool little cafe, & I love all the fab t-shirts they sell too.

They have a great selection of drinks & cakes, though service can sometimes be a bit slow, & they also have a habit of leaving yummy looking cakes in the cabinet when they have already been sold so you think you can have it but then discover you can’t : (

Great tea and cake shop in the northern quarter, owned by Mr Scruff- well, he does like his tea! And so he should, he makes his own blends which are all fair trade and delicious, the earlier you get there the fresher the cakes are! The tea-sets are lovely too- There’s a bit of a seating are outside for people watching, It’s just very chilled out and relaxing and a great addition to the street that it’s on! Vox pop used to be in all of the shop but now it’s just in the rear, but there’s till enough choice! try www.mrscruff.com and click on the onion shop to get the vibe, the illustrations are so cute!

mmm,we went in yesterday and it smelt of chip fat,was empty and took ages to be served, ended up with a really dried piece of apple cake and 1/2 a cup of coffee, bloke who served us seemed to be a little to pleased with himself, oh dear someone needs to tell them that even in the northern qtr rude is not cool,especially when clint boons gaff down the road had lovely tea and cakes for half the price and none of the attitude!

The tea sets in the window were certainly a draw into the cafe. I enjoyed my lunch, tea and pie but the service left a bit to be desired. The staff seems to be a little put off about actually serving people. Otherwise, nice addition to the Northern Quarter scene.

Really lovely vintage teacups & teasets!

Excellent pies, friendly service & chilled atmosphere and cool t-shirts. Never managed to make it back on a later day when I was in the city so need to get a website address to order a couple of shirts & some of Mr. Scruff’s Mint & Chilli tea.

Delcious smoothies! good muffin. Fab converted tabletennis table to sit at!
good Mr Scruff merchandise and records at the back of the store.
relaxed vibe good for recovering, chilling with the papers etc