Yard & Coop

Style Over Substance !
Yard and Coop sits in ‘hip’ surroundings, with a stylistic stripped back American décor to match. I went during the week and the place was ‘buzzing’ which made for an enjoyable evening.
The food was nice, I went for the ‘cock burger’ with the chorizo and chicken combo working really well! washed down with a delightful, yet pricey American pale ale.
Although I did come away feeling I hadn’t had the appropriate dosage of chicken, given Its a chicken restaurant. This is most probably down to my choice off the menu, I will therefore cautiously apologize in advance for my closing word’s .
My brother said on the way out and I quote «I would rather go to KFC», I would find it hard to disagree.

I have been to Yard & Coop a couple of times, and whilst the first time I went I was blown away by the food here, subsequent visits have left me a little disappointed. I’m not sure whether this is just because I’ve idolised that first time in my head so much I’m setting the bar too high for future visits or whether the offering has gone downhill. I certainly hope it’s not the latter!
First time I visited Yard & Coop was with my girlfriend and some friends for a birthday meal. We got the — no longer available — sharing bucket, which was 8 huge thighs, fries and a 4-​pint pitcher for £40. This didn’t seem like enough food for us, though, so we ordered 4 sides as well: the not chicken nuggets (coated halloumi), onion petals, battered jalapeños and something else which escapes me. Everything was delicious and they pretty thoroughly trampled all over my chances of ever going back to KFC.
My second visit was for the Unilocal «Lord of the Wings» event, which I’ve reviewed separately so not too much detail here.
My most recent visit was for some grub after Ziferblat’s 1^st Birthday! Myself and a bunch of other party people went here, and I ordered the chicken and chips — at £9, it seemed like a decent choice. I went for the chicken thigh, with Seoul sauce as it was my favourite from LotW, and regular fries.
I have to say, and again this might be me, the chicken thighs seemed smaller than they used to be. I mean, seriously, I’m pretty sure the ones we got in that bucket were huge. These were gone in a few bites. The chicken was, as ever, moist and beautifully cooked and the Seoul sauce was delicious, I just felt a little underwhelmed by everything. I was especially jealous of Ian M’s side of sweet potato fries, which was massive. Larger than the actual portion that came with the meal.
My probably inaccurate memory aside, Y&C lose some points from me because they ran out of wings. Yeah, I know we were there fairly late on and it was mid week but if your flagship product is chicken you kinda need to keep it flowing. There were a couple of the beers on tap which were unavailable too.
I’ll still happily return to Yard and Coop, as I still think they do some of the best fried chicken around. Just maybe I’ll go to KFC a couple times first to realign my internal quality scales.

Post-​Ziferblat cake and beer, we were looking for something substantial to each and balance out the inevitable sugar rush! Cue Yard & Coop, just down the flight of stairs, and a group of hungry Unilocalers.
We were seated on a large table to accommodate the future party (which turned out to be many more than we were expecting, so good shout from the waitress to choose this particular table!) and started to look over our menus. They have plenty of cocktails and boozy shakes, which come highly recommended, but I stuck to a glass of wine; after a few beers, I needed something familiar.
The menu is simply laid out, with bar snacks, starters/​small plates, and then mains in the form of ‘chicken & chips’, burgers, sandwiches, and salads. They also had two specials on the board — a chicken curry burger and naga wings. Although the thought of a wing-​off seemed a good idea, it turned out they didn’t have any wings… at all.
I decided on the chicken thigh, my preferred cut of chicken, with the bee’s knees sauce and chips. After our Lord of the Wings event, the bee’s knees was the right balance between hot and sweet; I would often go for buffalo hot with some blue cheese, but that’s only when I can share after the heat gets too much!
Service was friendly throughout, and kudos to them for coping with the additional party members throughout the meal.
I’m planning on coming back soon with work colleagues, and hopefully I’ll be able to try a different flavour combination and explore the options in more depth. Until then, it’s A-​OK from me!

Great venue & service.
Really good size portion of sweet potato fries — actually not a bad price at £2.50 either.
Loved the overhead projector in the corner. Made me want to leave messages to other folk. Somehow resisted.
Sadly, they’d not much ale on, and the one I had was pretty pricey at £4.50 a bottle. Tasty, but too expensive for me I’m afraid.
They’d also run out of some of their key dishes on the menu — guess it was fairly late, and early in the week. But that did seem a blooper. The prices for those key dishes also seemed pretty high.
Nice enough venue, and it adds something to Edge Street, but not sure I’d rush back due to the prices.

After coming to Yard and Coop around Christmas for a Unilocal event (trying out the new flavour of chicken wings), it was on my list to visit again!
When I came here, it was on a midweek evening. Sort of as expected, it was not that busy. The only offer they had was for a big bucket of chicken. Sounds like a good deal but only good if sharing with people and they want the same as you.
Anyway, I went for the boneless chicken thighs with Bee’s Knees sauce. (With chips). I remember this from the Unilocal event and liked the taste. If I am honest, I actually liked the Seoul sauce we had but it had coriander in it — unfortunately, it was not possible to do it without coriander.
I also got some «Not chicken nuggets» — halloumi — which tasted pretty good. In hindsight, I probably could have done with the chicken nuggets as would have been full enough with just the thighs and chips.
During the evening, there was a sort of jukebox request. Just tweeting Y&C with a hashtag and song request and get it played. I got my song played :) Went to Lionel Richie — Dancing on the Ceiling. Tune!

I’ve wanted to go back to Y&C ever since the wing event way back in November; I thought that it would be good to try out the place as a paying customer, and just one of the masses. A couple of friends were in Manchester for the night so I took the exec decision to make it so.
We arrived around 7.30pm with no booking and were seated relatively quickly. There aren’t too many beers on tap, however I did particularly enjoy the Yard Pilsner. If spirits are your thing, then the list is extensive — just take a look at the cage of booze in the middle of the floor!
50 minutes after ordering our food (and two pints deep), i felt the familiar twang of hunger in my stomach. Shortly after, a waitress informed us that they were aware that we had been waiting long (we didn’t ask, just sat patiently) and that it would be out momentarily. I had dreaded thoughts that our food orders had been lost. She then told us that as an apology our next round was on the house which was a rather nice surprise.
I opted for the boneless thigh with blue cheese sauce (remembering the spectacular sauce from Lord of the Wings), and just some reg fires. My friends both got the big cock burger which did look (and smell) absolutely amazing.
Overall really enjoyed the place, even if the wait was slightly long — a free pint always makes up for it. Food was good, and staff were nice.

Me and my partner went here after we seen the pics and reviews on Unilocal.The place was really modern and I loved the look of the place.
I was quite disappointed with this place though I thought it was very expensive for what you got and I didn’t think the service was that great. I prob wouldn’t go back because they only offer 4 wings for £5.

We came here for an early lunch thinking we’d go home and make Sunday dinner later that evening. There is nothing light about these meals and that’s not a bad thing! For the affordable price you get a lot for your money and the chicken is so tasty! You also get a choice of different sauces to smother your chicken in.
I’d definitely recommend this place if you love chicken and good alcohol. Just don’t go expecting to make a Sunday dinner in the evening, it won’t happen, you’ll be too full!

I will be honest — I am not a deep fried chicken kind of a person. I tend to avoid anything that is covered in an oily batter thicker than whatever the original food substance was. So I was a little dubious about trying Yard and Coop having scanned their menu and discovered that there were zero items on it that didn’t have something deep fried. Anyway, I decided to give it a go and give my inner KFC craver a little treat.
We came on a quiet Wednesday night and they had clearly known it was going to be quiet as there weren’t many staff. So service was a tad slow but it wouldn’t have really mattered except we were starving. They were all lovely and friendly once they had time to look after us.
Considering the deep fried nature of the food, it is really well presented and looks good. I had the yakety wrap — chicken in a wrap with avocado, lettuce and some sort of spicy sauce. It was really very tasty although the wrap effect makes the batter go soggy. It wasn’t oily, I didn’t feel like I’d eaten a bucket of grease by the end of it and I really wanted to scoff the lot. Which I did. It is served with a large pile of chips.
I managed to sample some of the deep fried halloumi and jalapeños too which were both tasty. I do wish there were a few less deep fried options — not for health reasons but because everything starts tasting the same after awhile…
The drinks selection is very interesting and includes milk shakes with the option of vodka. That’s always a winner.

Chicken makes up a high percentage of my diet on a normal week so I was more than happy to try out Yard & Coop
I decided I would go for the buffalo hot wings, corn and the breaded halloumi bites. All of the food was cooked beautifully and was definitely what larger chains would describe as ‘finger lickin good’. I need to point out here that like most people I went for the tissue option instead of the finger licking technique but this was still some damn good chicken!
If you read my reviews regularly you will know that I am a big fan of condiments, this restaurant has them aplenty. We got an amazing smoked bbq sauce, a chilli, a blue cheese and even my old favourite mayo. There was never a dry moment during the meal and everything was dipped liberally.
When I am next in Manchester I will more than likely be heading back here for round two!

Yard & Coop was giving me the sexy eye all week, and we finally got there for lunch on Wednesday. We’d been working at an office space over the road, and every time we walked past I was dying to go in as I’d heard so much about it.
We got a table easily and looked over the menu. The menu design is a little confusing but essentially there’s buttermilk fried chicken — breast or thigh, or you can get halloumi bites in the same batter. Then there’s 5 flavours of wings, sides and large plates.
I opted for the thigh fried chicken and some wings with Seoul sauce. For some reason, when they guy took our order he also wrote down our names which I thought was clever, but then that actually had no correlation to what happened when the food came out so that was a little confusing.
Speaking of the food coming out — this is where I had to dock a star. We waited for close to 40 minutes for our food. At lunch time. It wasn’t busy. I was starving. No one came over to tell us why there was such a long delay — sure, we were a table of 8 but they could have sent out the small bites at least.
Anyway, the food when it arrived was awesome. I tried a couple of halloumi bites and would definitely get these again just so I could scoff them all. They’d be awesome with a sauce. I loved the seoul sauce wings and absolutely ravaged them. The thigh chicken and chips were also really good but I think I’d probably get two kinds of wings and the halloumi bites next time I’m here.
Prices were good, service was acceptable and the layout of this place is pretty slick. The food was really excellent and those wings were absolute heaven. Can’t wait to go back.

We wanted wings. And we found wings. And they were glorious.
Yard & Coop does, as you can imagine with that name, chicken. And they do it well. We did both wings with the Bee’s Knees sauce and a fried chicken and both were perfectly crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. Mmm. And the sides are killer. The halloumi bites were delicious and the slaw saucy. The corn could have been way, way crisper (it was almost mushy, blarg) and the mac and cheese bites could have had less fried and more mac and cheese, but still tasty.
It’s a cool well-​lit space, lots of light unfinished wood, very casual and fun.
A few issues. The service is bad, like really bad, have to ask multiple times for anything and that’s if you can get their attention. And they are not in a rush, it’s going to take some time to get your food.
But my god is it worth it. So damn tasty. I’d be back in a heartbeat.

So having known about Yard and Coop and Unilocal’s Lord of the Wings event I was very excited about giving this place a try.
Firstly I’d like to point out the restaurant theme… Yard and Coop = chicken = smart! And this theme ran throughout the restaurant with really on point design and quirkiness. Foxes, quirky photos, mini eggs, and the food names — all interlinked and you could really see the thought process behind their theme, which has been executed perfectly.
Now to the food. Luckily for me I was sat next to Alex and we shared up an absolute treat!
We ordered: Mac and cheese balls, corn on the cob, wings, chicken breast, sweet potato fries, slaw and the not chicken nuggets.
As we were in a large group there was a bit of a wait but I feel this was the only reason. The waiter was polite and accommodating and helped us with recommendations.
Positives:
Buttermilk fried Chicken breast — hot damn, this was good. Served with the Seoul sauce (which was tomatoey and tangy) and a spring onions and chilli topping, it was cooked to perfection and was clucking good.
Mac and cheese balls: great flavours running throughout — crunchy on the outside and not overpoweringly cheesy.
Yard and Coop Slaw — I’m really not usually a fan of slaw but I thought I’d give it a go. To my pleasant surprise it wasn’t over mayoed and was simply a well put together dish.
The winner: not chicken nugget bites BUT halloumi goodness! I could literally eat a bucket of these! They were fried mini bites of ‘mmmmm’ enhancing quality. If you like halloumi you will LOVE these. Trust me.
Negatives:
Corn on the cob — they’d cut the corn in half and sadly it had gone a lil cold and the flavour was lacking.
Wings — this is only a personal thing as I’m not big on wing anyway but the sauce we chose was a little too spicy for me but as I said that’s just me.
I must say I’m a big fan of this place: style, good overall customer service, great gravy and good chicken. Spot on.

Loved this place! Even though i was only in for a drink with a friend, the vibe was great and loved the natural setting to the place with its cool lighting. I loved the yard pilsner and not too expensive at around £3.70 a pint, all the staff was really friendly and i can’t wait to go back to try the delicious looking food out sometime. A great new addition to the Northern Quarter.

Nice open restaurant with big glass windows and a row of booths done to look like chicken coops. I really like the alcohol cage right in the middle of the restaurant. Interesting and eye catching but also gives you an idea of what their bar can make. Beers on draught are a little limited but that’s fairly normal for a restaurant, they make up for it by having a large and decent selection of bottles.
I only had wings and cocktails on this occasion. I liked all the wings but preferred the hot wings, the sweet and sticky ones were just that although the bourbon BBQ was better than the Seoul wings I felt.

Loved my first visit to Yard and Coop. Simplicity is my friend and the set up here is uncomplicated. It comes as no surprise therefore that in the short space of time it’s been trading Y&C has become extremely popular.
Let’s not get carried away too much though, it’s still fried chicken with chips. but the level of effort and thought that’s gone into the business is worthy of note. Much like many NQ establishments the interior is very airy with high ceilings and funky wall coverings. I love that! The small lit up chicken coop booths look cool and are nicely decorated with lights. If you haven’t been yet I’d recommend you go during the week though as it’s fairly rammed on the weekends.
The menu is as mentioned earleir fairly uncomplicated. (There’s only so many parts of a chicken you can eat) Choose whether you want breast, thigh or drumsticks, choose a marinate, choose a sauce and voila, put a fork in it, done!
It’s a perfect place to go if you’re hungry and don’t want to fork out pretentious money for an unpretentious underwhelming dining experiance.

Been wanting to try this place for a good few weeks and every time I walk past after 7pm it’s absolutely packed. Luckily enough I was in town around lunchtime and as they only open at 12pm I was in luck to grab a seat (in fact lunch is the perfect time to go as there were loads of free tables).
I had the boneless Chicken Thigh on the recommendation of our waiter, a very good waiter at that, and added to that some Fries and the best part of the meal, the «Not Chicken Nuggets» aka Halloumi balls in breadcrumbs — YES!
My friend had the same as I but opted for the Cajun seasoning whilst I had the Yard & Coop original! We also split some BBQ wings which were equally as tasty.
Apparently this is the first restaurant venture for the owners — well hats off to you lads, you’re doing pretty darn good.

Since following Yard & Coop on Twitter I’ve been dying to go! Chicken and Booze??? Say No More!
The eatery is quite large, much larger than most other NQ spots, and works really well. It’s light and the décor is very casual, with some diners being seated in over-​sized chicken coops! Fab.
Their menu is really simple — you can choose from varied types of chicken, select different coatings or dustings and then choose your sauce and sides.
All served in a basket it’s done quickly and without complication or fuss — just like fried chicken should be.
They have an excellent selection of craft beers on offer too, if the chicken wasn’t persuading you enough! Definitely try Yard and Coop.

Aiming for a light bite for lunch I flicked through my bookmarks and settled on this.
Entering this oversized chicken coop we were warmly welcomed and led to a seat.
The ideology of the décor is great, from chicken caged lights, rustic barn like floors and furniture and a chicken wire game to Fox motifs on Walls and foxy brass knockers on bathroom doors.
Choosing a drink was not a problem, the shakes sounded a tad expensive but awesome. From a choice of black Forrest gateaux, and others I chose the salted karamel for £7 which was divine. The consistency was perfect and flavoured moreishly .
Right as a non chicken lover I was silly coming here but eventually I found something.
Here they offer various cuts of chicken in multiple combinations of breadcrumbs. Cajun, moroccan, salt and pepper in bees knees sauce, blue cheese, monetary Jack and bbq.
For the sides they offer various salads, chicken wings, fries or you can order a giant cock burger.
I decided on the haloumi cheese fried chicken style in blue cheese sauce, Asian salad and onion petals with chriozo.
Himself had the chicken wings and chicken breast in Moroccan coating.
Food did take awhile to arrive but when it did I almost fainted. and cursed for ordering so much.
The Asian salad was tasty with carrot peelings and cauliflower ends seasoned with chilli and spring onion. however i thought it looked like scraps you get when prepping Sunday lunch and was pricy for £3.50.
The battered onion petals were bland without the pickled beetroot and chorizo. the haloumi was tasty though but a tad dry. a waiter kindly brought me some iced water to remedy this.
My other half really enjoyed his but said the chicken wings were also a little dry in places. the spicy bees knees sauce was good though… and it was a good thing the waitress had left a paper towel dispenser on the table as this was messy work.
Defeated we asked for the bill which was laden with the chickens offspring aka mini eggs… I guess if you are going to eat the parents you should eat the kids too.
So with an entire chicken family inside me, my thoughts are the service is great as well as the quirky décor. The choice of drinks is fab, and offer chicken named cocktails. Food to me was a little inconsistent though and a tad expensive for some items.
I will still be back though even if it’s just for a drink

The staff here are very friendly and I was happy that we were able to get a seat at the bar straight away on a Friday night. Table waits were about 20 – 25 minutes. I imagine this is a combination of it being new and being quite a big space; in a few weeks it might be harder to walk in at busy times. We waited over 30 minutes for our food but our bartender noticed this and kept checking in on the order and on us, which was appreciated.
I had a nice piña colada (i.e. alcoholic) milkshake — really the only thing that could improve my no 1 favourite drink genre i.e. cocktails is put it my no 1 favourite drink genre i.e. milkshakes. Not cheap but a nice treat. The whiskey sour was actually quite sweet, they might need to work on their mixing a little. Still delicious though.
Food wise, I regret getting the BBQ as opposed to the cayenne pepper wings as the former is nice and sweet (and I still had some of the sauce on my face the next morning…) but I prefer my wings with a bit of a kick. Also could have done with a full rather than half pot of blue cheese sauce. The meat itself was excellent.
The onion bloomers and other things we had including the monkey balls were all decent although wouldn’t rush to get them again. I eat a huge amount of fried chicken from a variety of sources from decadent to dirty and this I have to say isn’t the best I’ve had. But I have yet to try the proper pieces of thigh etc.
Weirdly one of the best dishes was the fries with monterey jack cheese and gravy, both toppings were sensational.
The sound system isn’t that great — the music booms enough so you can’t hear your mates, but not enough so it actually sounds good. I liked the giant fox mural and my friend was mega excited by the tables under hen houses!
Will be back to try the bigger pieces of chicken and spicy wings!