Gangsters and hotels have an uneasy history, in Manchester as elsewhere. The crims appreciate a discrete place to do business, and when they are not transacting business on hotel premises, they are transacting it at the hotel's expense (protection rackets are not unknown). So is a gangster-themed hotel a winner?
A developer and hotel operator from Liverpool is planning a 25K SF Manchester hotel themed on the city's Quality Street gang, a bunch of formidable toughs who succeeded in seeing off their equally formidable London-based rivals, the Kray brothers.
Signature Living's 42-bed hotel will include a bar for gangster's molls to perch at, and a restaurant for them to order food like Mum used to make. The Liverpool Road premises will include Quality Street artefacts and memorabilia, Business Desk reports.
Quality Street was active in the city from the 1960s to the 1980s (and perhaps beyond). The name supposedly refers to their snappy way of dressing.
The Quality Street gang are said to have inspired Thin Lizzie's "The Boys Are Back In Town" and the showdown with the Krays was said to have happened at Manchester Piccadilly Station. Whether either claim has much relationship with the truth is a moot point.
Quality Street is not yet quite history and a tour of some of the city's inner suburbs can turn up homes with Quality Street connections. This specimen was decorated in the popular Crim Classique idiom.
Signature Living specialise in stag and hen nights.
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