The Whiskey Jar — Restaurant in Manchester

We booked The Whiskey Jar’s basement bar for our wedding celebration party, we paid extra for DJ equipment and setup… only to arrive and find nothing set up at all. I had to locate and connect everything myself, then the cartridges for the decks were missing, the bar manager ran all over the northern quarter trying to looking some, came back with one working one and one faulty one. Our poor DJ had to limp through on one deck for 2.5 hours before they sorted it. Hardly ideal for wedding party vibes!

For over 100 guests, they staffed the bar with one inexperienced barman for the majority of the 7 hour night— who openly admitted he didn’t know how to make even an Aperol Spritz (cocktails are apparently a specially in here!)— and the bar wasn’t even properly stocked (no Jack Daniels, really?). It ran out of glasses constantly, and guests were being told to go upstairs to get drinks… which conveniently helped the venue avoid hitting the £2000 spend target for free hire. We ended up paying over £500 on my wife’s card because the basement bar only made £1500 — yet guests were literally being redirected upstairs.

The whole thing felt amateurish and poorly managed. For a venue that trades on a cool reputation, they should know how to run a private event. Sadly, I wouldn’t recommend The Whiskey Jar for any party you actually care about.

To make matters worse, the customer service after the event was just as bad. My wife sent multiple emails outlining the problems and issues— and received very little...

For a bar that claims to be a specialist whisky bar I was sadly disappointed. On the positives the place was fairly busy for a tuesday and we were there for several hours with an accoustic night which seemed popular starting whilst we were there. The problems started with the drinks themselves however. Firstly because the couple of specialist whiskys ordered turned up in warm or even hot glasses. One so hot I could barely touch the base. This obviously completely ruined the flavour of the whisky Id brought a problem which could have been easily been remedied by the staff swirling some ice in the glass prior to serving. I also saw them keep whiskys despite there 'not being enough to serve'...the only reason I can think of being to mix with a new bottle once more stock arrived which is not good for a quality spirit as the sutble flavours can be different from bottle to bottle. Finally the last issue is the whisky cocktail menu states to ask for the standard menu if you dont want a whisky based drink however when asking for it, it appears there isnt one. Instead customers are put on the spot asking them to pick 'whatever cocktail they like' without them knowing how the bar will do it, whether all the ingredients will be available or the price list is...

I had a 50th birthday after party booked last week on the 8 July from 12 till 4am and asked for the terms and conditions via email and also visited the permises and at no time did anyone say i had to get to the venue by 1.30am as my party in castlefield rooms finished at 1am. I received a phone call from the dj who was playing at the after party at 1:15am saying the management needed me to get to the event as soon as possible, due to the concert in the bowl my party found it difficult getting to the venue, but about 15 people was already in the venue, I reached about 1:35 and the manager said he had a door policy for 1:30, I was very upset as this was my 50th birthday and the manager was adamant that he would not let me or any of my other guests in, I have written to the events manager, not had a reply and spoke to the bar person who stated the door policy is normally 2am. My guests felt the manager made a decision due to the ethnicity of the party. I've approached the manager and told him this and his response was that old chestnut ' ive got a black relative and friends. totally ruined my night and I would not book an event ever again at The Whiskey Jar the manager cannot explain why he did not allow us entry as it was a private event and not...