The Birdcage – Withy Grove, Manchester, M4 3QA map
- In the days of the late great Foo Foo Lamaar, Manchester used to boast many cabaret clubs, however nothing quite in the style of the Birdcage. This vegas style club is an import from leeds and it has found its home just opposite the printworks. The target audience is stag and hen parties but this venue offers something for every group, no matter what the occasion. The décor is over the top, but in a way it has to be to compete with the costumes of the dancing girls, dancing boys and drag artists that appear regularly through the night. Once you are seated there is full table service throughout the night, but you don’t have to stay at your table, oh no, between acts you can take to the dancefloor as the dj spins some classic cheese from the 60’s, 70’s and 8o’s. The birdcage is indeed a party venue, and it brings a welcome return to the days when a night out meant a whole lot more.
- live cabaret
- disco (cheesy pop, 60’s, 70’s & 80’s)
- table service
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Manchester Bar Reviews 
i went to this place expecting it to be crap, the only thought i could think of was if i wanted to see men dressed as woman dancing then i would watch lly savage on uktv gold but now i look forward to sat nights just to go see them, if u get the chance do urself a favour and get down there, u will not regret it i promise
Hi I am looking to have my hen party in Manchester on Saturday 4th August 2007. Do The Birdcage do food or is it just entertainment? What time would I need to be in for as may need to go for meal before hand.
Do they get the hens up and allow people to wear horns etc?
Cheers Mel 🙂
hi mel, i’m the party planner at the birdcage and have just come across ur message…thanks for thinking of us-our club is ideal for the sort of night out ur after! please give me or carmila a call on 0161 8321700 from 11-6 monday-saturday n we’ll be happy to answer any of ur questions.
hopefully speak 2 u soon
vicki
xx
Hey, i’m organising a tour for the University of Warwick’s mixed netball tour and was wondering if this place would be open on Monday the 19th March as it sounds like a right good laugh. If you could give me any info it would be greatly appreciated.
David
This is the worst place I have ever been to!!!Do not go there, they do not know how to treat people. Firstly it was a friends birthday so she phoned up to book vip and guestlist and was told my the incompetent receptionist, i doubt she even has g.c.s.e’s, that there is no vip, have you ever heard every club has a vip, and no guestlist v strange. Then we went in to the club where it took over one hour to get drinks at the bar!might as well drive you will be lucky if you get 1 drink in the night! Then we saw some very young girls and trashy people go into the vip section. This is a shame as we thought it was an excellent club with high standards!obviously not!I went to speak to the manager who said that you have to be invited by him or the general manager, and that it was rubbish in there anyway!I don’t quite understand why you would promote your club in this way!He then went on to say that we would be able to go in if it got quieter!However I still dont understand how there was so many young girls in vip and why would he invite them when he must have been 50 years old!!!Also then when we left my friend went to the cloakroom and we had not been given a ticket therefore we had been told we had to wait till 4 am in the morning or 11 am the next day, when in the first place my friend was not given a ticket by another very incompetent member of staff.Exactly what kind of business are they running!I would not recommend this place to anyone stay at the usual Manchester places i.e. Living Room and Label I can guarantee you will have an amazing night in this upper class establishments.
Had planned to go for a night out at the birdcage. We had not planned this well enough. Turned up at the door only to be turned away for not meeting the dress code. YOU HAVE TO WEAR A SHIRT!!! I was dressed smart- only exception was I was wearing a T-shirt. I must add that it was a fashionable T-shirt. Their loss! As a group of ten, we simply went across the road to Tiger Tiger and spent a s h i t load of money there. This was a bit OTT I think (and I think most people would agree) considering I was with good group of people. I can understand the reasons for dress codes. I just think the doorman might be one of those types who gets off on the power trip he gets by rejecting and causing sudden unrest amongst a good group of people. It was only a temporary upset and next time I’ll make sure to wear the ‘compulsory’ shirt when I go. “WEAR A SHIRT”- you have been warned! 🙂
I went to The Birdcage last night (sat night). We queued up at 9.30 for about 20 mins, then had to pay £6 to get in. Once we were in it looked as though the club was already at full capacity, yet they were still letting more and more people in till way past midnight. The club gets very very very busy. We could hardly move, let alone dance. They really shouldn’t let that many people in there, and it seems as though they don’t know what air conditioning is. This place has really changed since the first time I went in about 2 months ago. The management have got gready now, and have put the entrance price and drinks prices up. I wont be bothering to go again.
All I can say is – go on a Sunday if you dont like the crowds – you can wear a t-shirt (and jeans too!! LOL) Much quieter, and free entry – there – that covers just about everyones problems! I am going tomorrow night (saturday) so will report afterwards!
Promises so much but fails to deliver! Very busy, very very crowded, expensive drinks (£3.60 for a pint of diet coke) but most annoying of all is the poor poor management of this place. In short, the customer service and barstaff are awful. I was shortchanged by £10, complained to the bar manager (who wouldn’t give me her name) and was told “come back at 4:30 when we’re cashing-up” – wholly unsatisfactory. When I complained more I was told that I would be ejected unless I “shut-up”. This incident totally ruined my evening. I’ve told all my friends to avoid this place and would recommend that you do the same. The reviews above show that I’m not the only one who’s had their night ruined by the staff here! AVOID AVOID AVOID!
Hi, I’m Miss Blanche, the resident DJ and Compere at The Birdcage Manchester. I was just checking some of our reviews and came across this site. I must say some of these comments, I feel, are slightly overblown and if they are not them I will be very surprised.
Firstly, even on our busiest night (saturday, isn’t everywhere!), the average wait time at the bars is around 5 minutes. However, as you will appreciate, sometimes we are short staffed and this may increase, we stive to employ reliable, well trained staff that are courteous and polite. Secondly our capacity means we do get very busy, but we have listened to our customers and capped this recently as we want all our visitors to be comfortable. Our dress code is in place to protect customers and is smart casual, this has been fed to our door team and clarified as to what is acceptable.
As for the gentleman who sadly received short change, mistakes happen, unfortunately we do not have the facility to rectify mistakes on the spot as our bar system is fully computerised. We would have asked you to leave your name and number if you you were exiting the club before closing time. However, we recommend that you check your change before you leave the bar so that we can avoid instances like this which, in fairness, occur a lot less in The Birdcage then some other venues. Also, we do not operate a guestlist at The Birdcage and this applies to staff as well!! Our VIP lounge is membership based, for which you can apply on our website.
Lastly, we all work extremely hard to ensure all our customers old and new have a fantastic night out with us and return time and again, but The Birdcage is a club that evolves constantly and welcome all comments so that we may further our customer experience with us. Please feel free to comment to us on our website with any suggestions.
Now in the mean time, get down to the club Thursday to Saturday, and feel free to say Hi to the gorgeous blonde in the DJ box lol.
ENJOY!!!!!!!
hi i am looking for some where to have my hen party i was thinking of the bird cage has anyone been ,do they do food,is it expensive and can you dress the hen up and things like that 🙂
I went to the birdcage on 14th of april for my 40th which i was looking forward to as i had been to the cage 2 months before, plz believe me when i say this as i am not 1 to complain but after reading what BLANCHE says i must put her right. We paid 8 pound for queue tickets had to be in by 11 the place was heaving 45 mins we waited to be served at the bar maybe blanche gets hers quicker because it is brought to the box. I ordered vodka and coke to find out it had no vodka in it the bar manageress refused to agree so i asked three people around the bar what was in the glass all daid it was coke she still said there was vodka in it after refusing to move till i had seen the manager she gave me the right drink this was after 15 mins. I was led to believe the cutomer always comes first not in the cage it doesn’t.We had been danceing when the caberet came on only to be told to move to the back of the club away from the tables as though we was inferior this kept happening every 45 mins till it got to the point we had no room to move back into. The bouncers were rude that it being polite then told me if i did not move furthur back my friends and i would be removed. this place was to the brim with people and i tried to ask the bouncer where to move to he just said get back. My night was totally ruined we all decided to leave as my friends could see how annoyed i was getting i did ask to speak to marcus on several occasions only to be told he was busy this place neds hell of a lot more staff training especially in customer relations.
WELL IM GOING FRIDAY SO WILL SEND MY VEIWS AT WEEKEND. HOPE ITS BETTER THAN THESE REPORTS
I AM ORGINISING A FRIENDS HEN NIGHT AND LOOKING FOR SOMEWHERE TO GO AT FIRST GLANCE I THOUGHT THE BIRDCAGE I HAVE NEVER BEEN AND THOUGHT IT WOULD BE A GOOD LAUGH BUT READING THE REVIEWS IM STARTING TO THINK TWICE I DONT WANT TO RUIN MY FRIENDS HEN NIGHT SO IF ANYONE CAN TELL ME WHAT TO EXPECT I WOULD APPRECIATE IT
Just come back from the Birdcage 01/11/07 (thursday night). On Thursdays they have promotions on vodka and mixer. Unfortunately their deffinition of a double is somewhat lacking. I suspect that their house vodka is watered down and towards the end of the night, when they don’t use the optics, they barely put half a shot in mine and my friend’s doubles – couldn’t taste the vodka (incase you think our judgement was impared due to drink, my friend is a vodka expert – has toured russia and eastern europe). Complained but the staff were very deffensive. My advice; taste the drink whilst the bar staff are serving you – if you don’t think its a double, you’re probably right; demand a real double!
I just thought I would write in response to the “resident DJ” response from Miss Blanche…
“However, as you will appreciate, sometimes we are short staffed…” I HAVE TO STOP YOU THERE! People don’t appreciate this and that’s why they complained! I think generally, people prefer overstaffed/adequately staffed bars!
“Our dress code is in place to protect customers” From what? Disease, Terrorist Attack, Trinny and Susannah?
“Our VIP lounge is membership based, for which you can apply on our website”. – If you have to apply to be a VIP, are you a VIP?!
In regard to the bar system being “compromised” in order to facilitate refunds. Government computer systems can be compromised, a till in Manchester is not quite the same.
how old do you have to be to get into the birdcage?
Was thinking about having my hen night at this place, however since reading these reviews there’s no way i would part with my hard earned cash for a crappy night out. Think ill try dublin instead x
has anyone been here recently and if so is it still mad busy to get served and does it still get packed
I went to this establishment on sat 20th march 2010.
It was a friend of mines hen party and there was 11 of us.
we thought the evening had been planned perfectly with us finishing the night off in what we thoughht would be a wonderful caberet bar.
ITS NOT.
We entered to find it busting at the seems, far too many people in there.
I was then left waiting to be served at the bar whilst 2 other people were served who obviously knew the bar man and I did say to him I didn,t think that was very fair after a lengthy wait.
I then followed signs to a smoking exit to be told to leave my drink on the table inside.
Then to top it off on my way back in to the building I tripped over what i was later told by the management to be a base from a sign post which was propping the door open.
we met other women in there who were telling us they were preparing to leave because they found it awful and we agreed with them The entertainment was on for approx no more than 5 minutes and was 4 blokes in cow costumes dancing about and 2 couples dancing to cotton eye joe.
So on leaving after no more than 40 minutes I complained to the management who told me” people have different opinions” and that the door stop was not illegal. Well if I had that in my pub/restaurant I know I would be shut down.
It honestly was awful.
I have been to the Birdcage Manchester 2 times now and both times I loved it!! I am even going again in November for my friends hen night.
I have never been treated in a bad way by any of the staff, door or bar. I do have to agree though and say that getting served at the bar can take a while. However, there are 3 bars to choose from so I usually pick a side bar which can take about 15 minutes to get served. Just stock up on your drinks while you are there!!!
The shows last a lot longer than 5 minutes, probably about 15-20 minutes each. And they are just fab!!! So funny.
And with regards to people being told to move back, I have been seated both times I have been and it is not that people standing are inferior but its just that if you stand in front of a table, then those people at the table can’t see. And they have paid extra money to have a good seat. If you don’t want to be at the back, then book seats!
I can’t wait to go again!!!
are girls allowed to wear jeans in there on a friday night? i know dress code says smart casual but wasn’t sure if jeans are included
Informative article, exactly what I wanted to
find.