On the Eighth Day Co-operative Limited was founded
in 1970, and runs a vegetarian health food shop and café in All Saints Manchester. From 1971 the business was housed in an old
building, numbers 107 to 111 Oxford Road, which the Co-op purchased in 1980. In 1999, during renovation work, substantial structural
faults were discovered, which made further renovation impractical. The Co-op decided to re-develop the site rather than move elsewhere,
as our custom is based on the University area. We completed a deal with a property developer, Carlton (North Wales) Limited, to
demolish the old building and build a new block consisting of a ground floor and basement retail unit, which Eighth day will own,
and five floors of apartments, 23 in all, which Carlton will sell to pay for their investment. To allow the development to proceed
we moved into a temporary unit situated on the car park of the Sugden Sports Centre on Sidney Street in October 2001. This was
intended to be a 12-month stay, but has over run by 7 Months, we will not be moving into our new unit until late May or early
June 2003.
The new unit will comprise a more spacious shop on
the ground floor, which will allow us to increase the number of lines to include fresh organic fruit and vegetables and a wider range
of chilled and frozen foods. The shop will also offer a larger take away section, with coffee and soup from the café and, of
course, continue to provide the health and nutrition advice and products. The basement café will have he same number of seats
as in the old building and a spacious, modern kitchen. This will allow us to increase the range of the day time menu and also to open
a restaurant service in the evenings. We are designing a modern vegetarian and vegan menu for the restaurant, which will be table service.
The café and restaurant will be licensed, with a fine selection of vegetarian and organic bottled beers and wines.
The total cost of the project has or will be met by
a contribution from the developer, working capital, commercial bank loans and a Loanstock issue.