176 years of Kendals

Kendals Department Store on Deansgate is lit up in a nice shade of purple for the festive season.  My favourite part of Kendals is the Venetian tapas bar Chichetti, on the ground floor and winner of Best Newcomer award at the Manchester 2011 Food and Drink Festival.  It's where the food hall used to be - which was pretty amazing, especially for gifts at this time of year. Sadly the Food Hall had already long been gone before San Carlos opened their Venetian tapas bar in the same area in 2010.

The following is taken from The Manchester Evening News:
http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/life_and_style/s/1328749_kendals_celebrates_175_years_of_trading

" 'Manchester has no more perfect example of a modern furnishings and textile emporium than that afforded by the great establishment of Messrs Kendal, Milne & Co.' Ladies Home Journal wrote some 120 years ago.

It was back in 1796 that John Watts, a Didsbury farmer, opened a family business on the corner of Deansgate and Parsonage, in central Manchester.

It catered for the elegantly dressed women of the era and proved so successful that by 1830, the shop, now called the Bazaar, had expanded into purpose-built premises across the road – the current Waterstones site. It was a covered market building and forerunner to the modern department store.

The concept flourished and on Boxing Day 1935 it was sold to three young managers – Thomas Kendal, James Milne and Adam Faulkner. The department store, specialising in the sale of regular goods and the discounted stock of bankrupts, re-opened as Kendal, Milne & Faulkner, with the first in a long tradition of winter sales, in January 1936. Almost two centuries on, current owners House Of Fraser, are celebrating its 175th year [in 2010] of trading."