While Fallow Café lies fallow, is HAUS here to stay?
Little-known eateries and night-time hotspots tend to spring up unexpectedly, become hugely popular and then disappear slowly over the horizon. The sun set recently on favourite student venue, Fallow Café which was opened in 2013 as a coffee house with brunch and late-night drinks on offer till the small hours. Nobody knows exactly why it closed – it did receive a pitiful one-star food hygiene rating recently, and its late-night closing time of 3am was reduced to 1am. Maybe its time was just up.
However, in its place a phoenix has arisen. Regarded as a potential home-from-home for students, HAUS could be the new place to spread its popularity by student-word-of-mouth. New owner Howard Quayle reckons that the Fallow owners “had clearly given up on the old site a good while ago.” He added, “HAUS is a place that cares about its customers. Whether they want a sandwich and a coffee to go, a place simply to work, or a wholesome meal at an evening spot and to share a bottle of wine, that’s what HAUS is all about.”
Based on Landcross Road, HAUS aims to tempt the student population with food that is different from the usual offerings in Fallowfield. The menu is distinctly non-British, being influenced by Scandinavia with dishes like gravadlax, to other Nordic tastes as well as food with French, South American and south-east Asian origins. Howard does want the place to grow ‘organically’ and will be open to consumer demands. He does, however, promise that the upstairs space will soon be offering club nights and DJ residencies to tempt the late-nighters away from the competition. Indeed, HAUS had better be on its toes. Two more bars, Arabian Nights and The Drop Inn, have recently opened on Wilmslow Road in Fallowfield. May the best man win, with students obviously dictating the outcome.