Harris and Brad, the two friends behind new Northern Quarter bar Renae, met on the dancefloor. For them, there was perhaps no better grounding for a friendship.
Though details are hazy, it was most likely during a blurry night at Fingerprint, the party Brad ran at Joshua Brooks and which would feature sets from the likes of Prosumer and Ben Klock, one-time residents at Panorama Bar in Berlin, one of the most enigmatic and influential clubs in the world.
“We’ve been friends since then,” he says. Brad went on to open the stately NQ watering hole the Whiskey Jar, the locus of many a lost evening, as well as the sadly-missed breakfast joint Alabama’s. Harris, meanwhile, boasts a CV featuring the likes of Trof, the Deaf Institute, Gorilla, Common, Nell’s, Public and The Daisy, and more recently creating Soap Street Pizza, currently slinging ‘low and slow’ pizza from the kitchen Nordie in Levenshulme.
All the good places, basically.
The difference with renae, now open on Thomas Street (the name is inspired by French jazz pianist René Urtreger, who worked with Miles Davis and Lester Young) is that it’s all their own. Having planned to do something together for years, when the site – a former photography studio in an enviably great location – came up, the stars aligned neatly, so they hatched plans for a bar which puts music up front, with a heavy nod to the burgeoning listening bar culture.
During the day, there will be a record shop, with listening stations and a selection of vinyl curated by Patrick Ryder, formerly of Piccadilly Records and founder of the Talking Drums label, as well as pop-ups from indie zine and booksellers 20k and a Dead Sheep.
As work finishes and night falls, the record bins will be wheeled away to behind the DJ booth, where the magic happens. As a pair of music nerds, this bit has been rather more fun than planning applications and cap-ex spreadsheets.
Obviously the sound system is something special, as is the design of the acoustics inside the room. Panels inside have been installed to reflect the music from the sound system, keeping the room ‘lively’. Harris has been paying close attention to the listening bar culture for the past few years, seeing it take off all over, as well as the DIY bar ethos of Berlin.
While some of the bars he’s visited in Paris and Tokyo take on a more delicate approach to sound, using vintage hi-fi gear, Renae will be a bit more robust, using a Syva system, made by L-Acoustics in France. It’ll have a bit of heft to it, while DJs will doubtless be queuing up to play on a high-end Euphonia rotary mixer.
Spread across all three floors, the bar will be the focal point of the venue, with an events space upstairs that can be used for everything from yoga to gong baths to club nights, while on the top floor, they want to build a community of creative types with a co-working space, which will lean heavily towards the affordable. “You know what happens when you get creative people all in one place,” he says. “Good things happen.”
“We want to create an inclusive community for people who love music and hospitality,” he says. “Sometimes, if you love music, a lot of times you’ll go to a place that has great gigs, great DJs, but the hospitality can let it down a little bit. We wanted to bring those two things together.”
Among the opening parties will be the likes of Nossa, Hannah O’Gorman and Keltoi’s nomadic Afro-Latin clubnight, while resident and guest DJs will be on call pretty much every night of the week.
renae will be a thoughtful operation, combining both Harris and Brad’s many years of experience in the bar business with a deep love of music and all that comes with it.
“We’re buzzing,” says Harris. “We just can’t wait to get the doors open.”
renae is open now, Monday through Sunday.
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