The Paramount

Weathers!
I have been going to spoons for years now and this one is pretty standard.
A good amount of seating but there could be more. There is a small upstairs with a few tables and chairs and it’s usually pretty busy.
You pay for what you get really, cheap good food that is standard to everyone.

What can you say? The staff are very friendly and it is clean inside. The food was okay but you pay for what you get. It was very busy on this visit but is good place to go for somewhere cheap

Dingy waste of Time
This is another one of those pubs you wish would die off along with the dinosaurs. You may think from the photos people post that people are using poor quality cameras, not the case, as it really is that dark and dingy. Terrible floor plan and horrible seating, with a pub food and drink menu that feels like it hasn’t change in 50 years.
The atmosphere is that of a secondary old peoples home and there’s often some god awful channel on the TVs around the place. They consistently have large bouncers on the door no idea why I’ve never seen anyone under 30 in there, let me check your ID please grandma! The staff seem underpaid and piss off to be there dealing with plenty of fools trying to pay with a coin purse from some kind of fantasy novel.
I think a main draw of this place is its prime locality but I must mention next door is a brand new superior Turtle Bay Caribbean bar. I think if the dinosaurs could put aside there traditionalist allegiance and causal racism they’d have a much better evening. I pray I don’t end up in here again… shudders.

We were in Manchester, UK overnight the other day on a quick visit, and we’re trying to scrounge up a breakfast before our meeting. Not much time to look for a proper resto, so we popped into the Paramount pub close to our hotel and were pleasantly surprised.
We both had the big breakfast to get us through the day. Nothing like a full fry up Eggs, ham, toast, hash browns, tomatoes, mushrooms and beans. And of course — awesome breakfast sausages! Why oh why can’t we get decent breakfast sausage in Germany?
Anyway, it’s a big pub, probably a good place in the evening. And there are more that 20 beers from all over the world on tap.

This looks like a fun place to go with a group to catch a game — I just stopped by for a quick bite after a long day, so I didn’t stay long, but will definitely try to make it back during my next visit to Manchester. They have a pretty extensive menu, very reasonably priced and you can’t beat their combo meal deals which give you an option to add a pint for about a pound more. I tried a veggie burger and it was pretty good, but what really made me want to return is their extensive menu of brews — too bad I was nursing a hangover that night, but oh lookout for next time!

I think some people would never dare award a Wetherspoons pub anything more than three stars. Why not? It’s cheap, the food is good, as are the drink selections. It’s clean. You can always get a seat. You can have a great conversation as there’s no music. If you’re on a diet, it’s one of the few places to bother putting calories quantities on the menu. What the heck isn’t to like?
It’s not a place I would celebrate a birthday — nor would I want to spend all night in here — but along with the Waterhouse nearby, it’s a great meeting point/​lunch venue/​drink stop off and it’s almost always full of workers. Possibly wouldn’t go in on a Saturday night but during the week and evenings, it’s great for a cheeky drink.

Cheap and cheerful as any Wetherspoons is. Was super quiet at the time we got there so had a booth to ourselves. Two breakfasts and two coffees for under £10. Food came super quick and was as you would expect from Wetherspoons. Fairly decent coffee which was really needed to wake us up ! Great value for money, can’t complain

Just popped into the Paramount for a quick drink and a chat. It’s a huge bar, much bigger than it looks from the street. On the surface it looks like it’s nicely decorated, and I’m sure it was, once. However it’s looking a bit rough around the edges now, and some of the seating especially the booths are downright uncomfortable. In the plus side, typical weatherspoon menus and an impressive range of beers. There seems to be a problem with flies, so didn’t stay for a 2^nd drink.

Another typical Wetherspoons, but fitted with extra large projector screens and a pretty decent interior. It’s a good stop if you’re looking for a quick bite to eat and a cheap pint (can’t go wrong with their burger and beer deal).
It’s two stories, with half the floorplan laid open for maximum space. If there’s a big game on, they bring out the large screens so you can get groups together and watch at Paramount.
It’s not a bad location at all, but there’s nothing about it that’s particularly stellar, so it’s hard to justify anything than an average rating. If you’re a fan of Wetherspoons, you’ll fit in here nicely… if not, there are plenty of other places to go in Manchester.

Fairly decent, large’ish Wetherspoons on Oxford Street just down from St Peter’s Square, on 2 levels, with plenty of reasonably priced ales and food on offer. The place was busy as you would expect on an early Saturday evening, so the service delays were to be expected, but the main gripe was no access upstairs for my two wheelchair-​bound friends (we struggled to find a table on ground floor).

A good Wetherspoon’s of the slightly more upmarket type.
The usual decent prices and range of ales and lagers along with a large screen for the sport.

Paramount is one of those pubs that is basically a bit like a Wetherspoons with loads of drink and food deals. At night it can be busy and full of people you wouldn’t really chosse to spend the evening with.
However, during the day, it’s pretty quiet and it’s a good place to go and get a cheap lunch and pint. I think the quality of everything is a bit better than Wetherspoons as well, so if it’s a choice between the two, Paramount probably wins. There’s loads of comfy seating around as well and the obligatory Sky Sports News on the flat screen TVs. You know exactly what I mean.

Unlike in the nearby Wetherspoons The Waterhouse, you can almost always get a seat in The Paramount, because it’s massive and not split up into tiny rooms. However, it is not massive in the ‘large empty space conducive to muttons dressed as lamb shaking their booties’ way like the Moon Under Water is. And there’s no music. There is a space for old men to stand at the front by the bar, there is a place to eat under the mezzanine and there is a place to get a good aerial view of the action below.
Yes, it’s cheap, but it counts as a city centre Wetherspoons therefore you pay £1.29 for your bottle of Becks (or whatever they have on offer at the time) rather than 99p. If that 30p makes a difference to you then head up the road to the Ford Madox Brown.

Yeeeurch, I hear you cry, a Wetherspoons! Dearest Emma-​Louise of the Howard clan, have you gone mad? Almost, but not quite.
At the intersection between Oxford Road and Oxford Street, something I’ve never fully understood, sits the Paramount, so named because of the Paramount cinema on the same road. Like the dreaded Moon Under Water, this Wetherspoons is equally huge, bigger if anything, and it being of JD’s family means a couple of things.
Inexpensive drinks, that’s a given. Cheap pub grub that fills a gap, that’s another. Myself and my brotherly friend almost ate here, but we did decide against it eventually, especially when some ominous figure approached us with a bunch of food vouchers for this very pub. He wasn’t even working for the pub, how spooky is that? Goodness, isn’t it terrible that we city folk can’t even accept a simple favour. He said he and his wife get sent the vouchers every month as they’re members of some kind of club and they never use them, so when he clocked us looking at the menu he came over. Smarter folk may have gone for it, but we wound up getting shedloads of junk food and booze from Tesco and heading back to my place, as often happens with us.
But as Wetherspoons go, I don’t mind this one so much. It’s cheap, nice to stop off at before a night out, great for catching up with a friend as I found out, and the central location means you’ve got access to some of Oxford Road’s best bars and gig venues. Not seeing any problems so far. Also, the way it’s set up is rather pleasant too. It’s vast and open plan downstairs, but more intimate and cosy upstairs if you want a quiet drink with someone a little more special. If you’re up for saving a little cash, give it a try. And I’m always a fan of free wifi.

Do you know what? It’s not that bad this place.
I mean OK it’s a Wetherspoon’s and most of them have absolutely no soul whatsoever and are constantly full of the world’s worst people but Paramount is actually OK. So there.
It’s full of characters, from crazy old men to schoolkids, it does attract some strange sorts.
It’s dirt cheap, I mean just plain silly, all Wetherspoons are but it still shocks me when you can buy a five drink round and have change from a tenner… it’s just not normal.
However the lack of music is a big factor in making me want to go somewhere else, it’s very noticeable and if you’re just out for an after work drink and chat, fine but if you’re on a night out it’s not the best place to head… unless you’re skint that is!

This place is not bad for a Wetherspoons bar. The drinks are again very cheap and the selection is quite large, quite impressed last time I went they were serving Sailor Jerry rum at around £1.50 a measure!
Good meeting place but can get very busy as you can imagine a lot of people getting their cheap drinks in before moving on to other bars or clubs. Don’t expect to find much seating for large groups and expect to be standing around drinking most of the time.
Good stop for a quick, cheap drink although there is still much nicer venues for that I feel.

A wetherspoons style bar for the masses who frequent the peter street area of town. Cheap drinks, cheap people. If you like the bars on peter street you’ll love this place.