Odd Bar

I love Odd Bar! I've always found that staff super friendly and always up for a bit of a chat! The food is a touch expensive but once I'd had a few bites of their Chorizo & Bury Black Pudding Salad I really didn't care - it was awesome!

I work in the Northern Quarter and get around very frequently, however Odd is somewhere I do not want to go ever again. It is too expensive considering they don't offer anything you can't get elsewhere and the staff were extremely rude on the last two occasions.

Odd is the big Mac Daddy of the Northern Quarter bar scene. Which may go some way to explain why it is always busy. And I mean ALWAYS busy - you could go in there at 9am and still probably have to fight your way to the bar.

In some ways this isn't a bad thing - after all, a busy bar means that its owners must be doing something right - but sometimes it can become more than a little annoying. Thankfully, Odd manages to offset this by being a very relaxed and laid back little place. Seemingly every wall in the place is littered with interesting and quirky art, lots of interesting glittery wall hangings and - for some reason - lots of huge clocks.

They also serve up some damn tasty food to boot - their £5 pizza and beer deal is a particular delight, as are their lip smackingly good chorizo stew portions and sweet potato fries. When you add to the mix a wide range of exotic beers and spirits, some great Happy Hour deals, and some even better DJs, what you've got is definitely one of the highlights of the Northern Quarter's numerous booze outlets. The only way they could make it any better is if they got a halfway decent smoking area. But still, you can't have everything I suppose.

Odd is ALWAYS busy. Whether it's at 5pm with the afterwork crowd greedily guzzling down the cheap happy hour wine or at 9pm on a Friday night, it can be extremely difficult to get a seat. My favourite position is the bar stools by the window. Why sit further from the bar, it only takes more time to get served. Time is of the essence in the super busy Northern Quarter, after all.

The food is reasonably priced and portions are fairly big. The sweet potato chips are to die for. Eat them.

The decor is 'eccentric', with a stag's head on one wall and photographs of staff and customers forming a border around the wall at the top. The furniture is mismatched and homely and lends the feel of a junk shop to the bar. In a good way.

The first ever time I went to Odd Bar was in 2006 during Futuresonic Festival, and I owe to it one of the oddest experiences in my life. The now regular in-house project, Pukka, was debuting, and the DJ was planning on playing the soundtracks from Italian police movies and thrillers. To complement the set and make it a bit more special, they were going to screen extracts from some of those films on the screen downstairs. All excited, I headed there and found myself in a cozy room with several sofas. The screen was just above one of them, the extracts were already showing, and on the sofa right beneath a guy and a gal were sitting, embracing each other and kissing. They knew I wasn't watching them, and I knew I wasn't watching them, but it didn't make the situation any less awkward. Or odder, for that matter.

Pukka has become an in-house project, and in the years since I've visited the bar many times. To me, the place has always been unique mainly because of its location. There is something special about sitting with your feet up on those cozy sofas on the left, under a kind of canopy, drinking a cocktail or beer, and watching people in the street. Its atmosphere is peculiar, for it almost epitomises the word "atmosphere": it's many things at once, and the impression is always too fleeting to capture. And because I've got this strange interest in 1970s-1980s, Odd somehow evokes the spirit of these decades. The dim lighting, cheesy music, laid-back style, and the suspicion that there is more than meets the eye. Pukka must be a resident project for a reason.

It's not all about Pukka, though. There is a regular quiz, as well as a few other regular DJ sets. Beers and wines are good, and although I didn't eat there often I wasn't disappointed when I did order food. Last year Odd Bar hosted one of the stages of the launch of Havana Cultura website, in association with Havana Rum. It is frequented for a reason, and its popularity naturally puts off those who shun the crowds. But whether you are new to Manchester or have lived and breathed Northern Quarter for a number of years, then Odd is not so odd a choice. It's weird, strange, peculiar, different, original, quirky, and possibly even at odds with itself.

And I shall make no apologies for all the puns...

Odd is one of those places that ticks all the boxes but leaves you a little cold through no fault of its own.

Essentially, what you have got is a great little space filled with pop-art, trinkets and odd tables and chairs that make you feel immediately at home.

The staff are nice enough and the beer is okay too.

However, it's just lacking a vibrancy that can be found at other places similar to it. Even its sister bar, Odder (on Oxford Road) is a better bet and makes more sense in your head.

Like I said, there's nothing especially wrong with Odd and a good time will be had in there, no doubt.

You just won't leave the place thinking "I can't wait to go back there".

Great for chilling out in the afternoon or a leisurely lunch. Worth making a trip for the sweet potato fries alone! Gets a bit crowded on the weekends and in the evening though, and minus a star for getting rid of the chalkboards in the toilets!

Nice for chilling out after shopping but it's so small it gets rammed in the evenings.

What’s most fun about this place, is that down stairs is like this little room, that looks and feels like a living room in some classy/arty persons home. Worth checking out.

Long-standing classic situated in the heart of the Northern Quarter. Busy at the weekends so you’ll struggle to get a seat upstairs but the basement has a lounge which offers a chilled retreat from the crowd upstairs.

Mid-week in the Northern Quarter is a tough call between Odd and Trof. The atmosphere in Odd is warmer and somehow more relaxed. Odd offers a solid selection of beers on tap with a guest cask ale normally available, often from the nearby Marble brewery. The interior is cool and ageing well and the jukebox only ever plays quality anthems.

It can be hard for a new bar to carve a niche for itself in Manchester’s Northern Quarter, but Odd certainly knows how to stand out. The exotic furnishings are the first thing to catch the eye, but Odd also stocks a vast range of lagers from around the world, and a decent food menu. The creators of Odd have obviously paid real attention to detail, and have been rewarded with a loyal following.

a nice little bar but i would stress the “little” and on a friday and saturday night it gets a little cramped and there is often a queue outside to get it. the drinks can be a little pricey but if cant fit many people in youve got to make money somehow. it has quite a trendy layed backed atmosphere but there isnt much seating unless you go when its quiet or in the day. i think there is another small room downstairs but it doesnt seem to be used. a good place to start of the night and to meet up with people get s too busy later.

Good bar, good food, good drinks, bit pricey!

Great little bar. Friendly door staff, nice music ,home cooked lunches, good selection of imported beers. Typically of a NQ bar, its small, so if you need a seat, you’ll have to get their early, although the quieter downstairs usually has an odd spare seat.

One of the better bars in Northern Quarter. There is one particularly nice corner with lavish wallpaper and other interesting decor. I was there on Saturday and it was fun though not an amazing atmosphere and not that much going on. Perhaps a dance floor would improve it. Worth a visit though.

A now-staple bar in the northern quarter in Manchester, Odd Bar has a good atmosphere, good service at the bar, cool decor and it ain’t too pricey. One of the many new, not too uber uber-cool bars to pop up in Manchester in the last 4 years - and one of the better ones.

This award winning bar is one of the highlights of the Northern Quarter. Always lively and delightfully quirky, it’s a truly unique place to enjoy a few drinks. The staff are friendly and there’s a grear range of drinks on offer.

While bars in the trendy Northern Quarter usually have steeper prices, Odd Bar doesn't seem to, despite its eclectic and unique decor giving it an impression of somewhere more upmarket.

The walls are adorned with art, adverts, and downstairs there's a wall covered in mirrors of all shapes and sizes, which certainly attracted my attention.

Their eclecticism is reflected not only in the mirrors but in the soundtrack to your night should you choose this venue: some nights hold DJing extravaganzas, but whether they're there or not, funky beats and cool grooves are bound to be heard.

Finally, if you haven't had enough of the Odd atmosphere by night, I'm told that they're food is awesome, and checking out the menu left my mouth watering so I am sure to head back there some time in the not too distant future to try it out for myself.

Odd is - well, odd really. With an ecclectic mix of furniture, spirits, beer, music and flamboyant characters, Odd certainly tends to all your senses needs. This bar has had a lot of heart and soul put into it and it's personality certainly comes through the decor and The Best Jukebox in Manchester (as certfied by me) - not to mention the friendly staff.

Many a times I have been enticed with the exotic flavoured beers and then crawled back the next morning with a hangover for some of their delicious food! I recommend any of their sandwiches - they're the only sandwiches I know that could put a doorstep to shame and require a knife and fork to tackle them! Although some of the food may appear pricy it is well worth it as it tastes better than mums home cooking.

I can only recommend you get to this bar early to get yourself a seat, or be doomed to stand up for the rest of the evening!

Odd is firmly established as one of the Northern Quarter’s ‘go-to’ bars. The décor is unique and conducive to a relaxing drink in the afternoon. Clearly a fair amount of effort has gone in to establishing a laid back and relaxed vibe. One of Odd’s strengths is its malleability. As the afternoon advances and we move in to evening, the atmosphere subtly changes – the bar copes very well with this, and if anything, works marginally better in a more bustling environment. Come with friends and talk about music and art and film. This is the kind of place where the bar staff will also chip in with their opinion. And that’s a good thing.