Wetherspoon has opened its eighth UK airport pub, The Belle Vue, inside Manchester Airport’s redeveloped Terminal 2. The £3 million, 338 square metre site seats up to 300 people and marks the final food and drink unit to open as part of the terminal’s £1.3 billion, decade-long transformation.
The pub opened on 15 September in the departures area beyond security, trading from the first flight of the day to the last, roughly 3am to 10pm. Its interior is styled as a clubhouse, with retro booth seating in dark racing green and tan leather, and draws on the history of the original Belle Vue, a Victorian era showground in east Manchester that once hosted greyhound racing and speedway. The design also references local sporting figures including Marcus Rashford, Luke Littler and Ricky Hatton. Pints start at £6.20, and unlimited filter coffee costs £3.60.
A clubhouse built around Manchester’s sporting past
The pub is run by manager Jenny Warburton, who previously managed Wetherspoon’s Mardi Gras pub in the city. Historical photographs and sporting memorabilia are set against the booth seating, tying the pub to the site’s origins as a Victorian showground rather than to a generic airport format.
Food service runs until 10pm from the pub’s kitchen, while drinks remain available across the whole of its roughly 3am to 10pm opening hours, geared to departing passengers rather than a standard high street pattern. Airside trading hours of that length are one of the reasons travel hubs behave differently from the high street sites most restaurant and hospitality brands recruit for.
Eighth Wetherspoon pub inside a UK airport
Richard Jackson, retail director at Manchester Airport, said The Belle Vue would “complement the existing bars and pubs in Terminal 2, expanding the choice on offer to passengers, with something to suit all tastes and budgets”. Stephen Turner, chief commercial officer at Manchester Airport, said the pub would “encapsulate the spirit and traditions of sporting entertainment in Manchester”. The opening is Wetherspoon’s first pub at Manchester Airport specifically, and its eighth at a UK airport overall.
Good to know
Sites such as The Belle Vue are run directly by the company. Separately, Wetherspoon’s own franchising website states that it is open to granting franchises to existing pub and hospitality operators across the UK and the European Union, a reversal of the group’s long-standing public position against franchising.
Final piece in a £1.3 billion terminal transformation
The Belle Vue is the final major food and drink opening in Terminal 2’s decade-long expansion, a project that more than doubled the terminal’s size and cost £1.3 billion in total. John Hutson, chief executive of J D Wetherspoon, said the company was “looking forward to opening at Manchester Airport” and believed the new pub would “prove popular with travellers of all ages” and be “an asset to the new terminal”. Manchester Airport has not said whether further food and drink openings are planned once the Terminal 2 programme concludes. Brands that do publish their entry terms can be compared across the UK franchise directory.
