The Union Bar

I think the Union Bar really is a great place for just being the University bar. The atmosphere is always quite vibrant since it’s located inside the Student Union, therefore there are events and activities going on very often. It basically consists of a huge rectangular room split into two halves, each of which contains a few tables with sofas and very comfy seats. A couple of pool tables are also available.
I reckon its strengths are cheap prices and a great location that is very easily reachable from every point of the campus. It’s also a good setting to organize social events. In fact I have been here during the freshers week for an international pub quiz (a very successful event!) and the last event of the Italian society. It’s also a great place to chill out and have a nice chat with friends after uni.
I would not recommend to get food here, whereas drinks are ok and definitely cheap (for non-​drinkers, they have soda with lime at only 20p). Unfortunately what I find much annoying is the that they only have unisex toilets, but I guess this is in line the hippie Student Union’s spirit.

This place is good for cheap drinks in a good location and nice set up!
However, stay away from the food. It’s horrible!!!

Cheeeeeeeeeeap. As it should be.
Free wifi if you’re a student-​type. With an Eduroam login.
TERRIBLE, but cheap, tea (try boiling the water, but I suppose that people mostly go there for the cheap pints).
A decent selection of ales. I didn’t taste them, but think craft, and local.
And there’s comfortable chairs.
I wouldn’t go out of my way or anything, but it’s a reasonable place to wait for someone. Or, if you’re a student, see where your £9K/​year is going.

It’s a shame that my own Student’s Union bar doesn’t fill me with more enthusiasm. I’m assured that it’s actually a lot nice since it’s been refurbished, so I really dread to think what it must have been like before this, because the furniture is pretty much all I like about the place. Well, and the location as well I guess — handy for a cheeky inter-​lecture pint, or coffee for the more sensible amongst us.
But considering that our union is actually pretty large and has so much scope to be a really popular venue for its students, it really is a disappointment that the union doesn’t play a more central role for us. Events like BOP at the Jabez Clegg and Dyslexic at Factory scream ‘fun student night’ far louder than does our lowly union bar.
The prices of food and drink in general seems to be a bit dear for what I would expect for a student union as well. Maybe that’s just me being stingy again though. What do you think?
Plus — it’s always cold in there! It’s bad enough in the centre tables but once you’re tucked away next to a window, that’s it, shivering WILL ensue.
All in all — the revamp seems to have done a good job, it actually LOOKS nice. But there’s a long way to go before I’ll actually be keen to go there for a reason other than convenience’s sake.

For three years of my life I walked past the Solem Bar in the University of Manchester Student’s Union and barely went in. This wasn’t through any particular snobbery (my standards really aren’t that high) but because I never understood why anyone would want to go in there. It was cold, bland and uncomfortable. The beer always tasted a bit watered down and you had to constantly shout because the music was so loud.
Since I graduated, everything has changed. There has been a major renovation over the summer and now Solem has become ‘Union Bar’ and has some very tasteful furnishings and decoration. Rows of big orange lights line the bar, plush sofas and seating is placed across the room (no more bolted down chairs and ugly metal frames). There is still a poll table but its no longer placed in the way and you actually have room enough to play a game without knocking pints off tables.
The drinks still feel a little pricey for a Union bar (MMU Students get a much better deal) but you don’t feel as robbed drinking in somewhere with a little class.

Tucked away in the heart of the University of Manchester Student’s Union is the Solem bar, where the miscreants and rapscallions escape from their academic toils for one brief, blissful moment. It recently underwent a revamp, which has transformed it from the dark and dingy hell-​hole it used to be, into a much brighter, more cheerful and downright nicer establishment.
The seating now is actually ordered and arranged rather than the chaotic mess it was before, as if someone had vomited a home furnishings department about the place, and the general atmosphere has been given a kick up the arse as well. The pool tables and juke box are still there to while the hours away, and TVs are on the way.
Since it is pretty much student only, the bar follows suit by stocking the more popular spirits and lagers at cheap prices. Mind you, it’s not as cheap as other student bars, but I guess you can’t have everything. A food menu is on the way as well apparently. It looks like someone finally realised having a good bar in a student’s union is a good first step to having a good student’s union.
If you build it, they will come.

The harsh icy wind blows across my face as I struggle through the Manchester ‘summer’ on my return from a few months away. I’m aiming for Big Hands for my lovely fresh pint as I fight my way down the tremulous Oxford Road, battling past viscous enemies: the roaring wind, the drunks in the park by Man Met and the students flyer-​ing for pimps and prostitutes parties at a woeful cavern of misery such as Pure.
I’m almost there, but conditions are bad, I’m running out of HP points. I see The University of Manchester Student’s Union on my right. A flicker of a memory: a pint of soggy beer in a flimsy plastic glass spilling on me as I try to negotiate my path back to my canteen table and wooden chair with a leg missing while contending with a inebriated youth trying to pot the balls from one pool table into the pockets of the table beside it. But Big Hands is too far, I won’t make it! I turn and head for the entrance, and manage to bypass the bouncers, despite their numerical advantage, being in the standard Manchester University ratio of 3 bouncers to every 1 customer. But finally, I’m in…
…for the shock of my life!
A refurbishment would be the understatement of the year. The pit of doom transformed into a haven of joy!
The new Manchester Student’s Union is remarkable. Lovely approachable staff, decent drinks, reasonable music, nice spacious seating and good lighting are all new additions to this venue. Its’ all changed, except the prices! Still less than £2 for a beer and only a little more for a glass of (just) drinkable wine or a spirit and mixer.
The price for a cheap drink has gone down; you no longer have to give your happiness. I definitely predict that the Union will reverse its age-​old trend of being empty and turn into a popular student drinking hole. But remember, you don’t have to be a University of Manchester Student, but you do need a student card of some sort. Enjoy.

Non, non, non! Je n’aime pas le re-​vamp au le union des students dans Manchester. C’est tacky et tres tres unnecessary.
What’s that, you’re not fluent in French like my excellent self? Well, fine, en Anglais; the Union Bar’s re-​vamp sucks. I hate it.
I’m not one of those curmudgeonly old tarts who hate change and shun energy-​saving lightbulbs. I like change. Progress is good. Tearing out a perfectly decent Union Bar and replacing it with some sort of lap-​dancing club décor, however; not good.
If you’re young enough to never have seen the old Union Bar, I pity you. It was entirely pine. Pine tables, pine chairs, probably pine flooring though it was always so dirty the jury is out, pine pine pine. It was cheap. It was ugly. There was loads of seating and everyone knew they’d get a chair and a table. Now, it’s a mess of chain curtains, ‘intimate’ booths and awkward low couches and tables. As if they know they’ve made a mistake, the area to the right of the entrance is reminiscent of pine times, except with plastic chairs.
To my mind, if it ain’t broke, then please don’t try to fix it. This re-​vamp is an obvious desperate ploy by the Uni to impress open-​day attendees. Unfortunately, the knock-​on effect of this Changing-​Rooms-​esque fiasco is that drinks prices at the (new, much smaller) bar are much higher than they used to be. Boooo!
The Union Bar used to be a cheap and dirty place to have a £1.30 pint before heading out. Now you’ll easily pay £3 for a drink, and you’ll do so in an environment that’s more like Hollyoaks’ SU than a real union.
Students’ unions aren’t supposed to be shiny and wow-​y, they’re supposed to be a bit shit, but cheap. This re-​vamp hit way, way wide of the mark.

Very cool, the student’s union bar of the university of Manchester has recently had a revamp making it look like the interior of ted burgundy’s (anchorman) flat. Not a bad thing, couple this with the ridiculous amount of comfortable chairs and big round tables you can cram the gang around the SU bar is a good place to have a quiet drink.
The university runs a minimum drink price policy so there’s none of this shot for 5p business that can turn many a Student’s union into a time bomb every busy night (cough man met). This keeps the place chilled and there are lots of pool tables for having a few brews around. A pint is still a cheap affair along with the food so it makes a good between lectures pit stops. The bar runs some of the biggest student events at the start and end of the year including the awesome Pangaea festival. Nice place.