FROM WAREHOUSE TO FULL HOUSE: HOW SAINT PAUL’S CONQUERED BRUM
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A year after transforming a rundown Jewellery Quarter warehouse into Birmingham’s most handsome food hall, Saint Paul’s Market has welcomed well over a quarter of a million visitors. Now its founders are plotting a big birthday bash and an even bigger second year. Football screenings, chess clubs and an even bigger role in the community are all on the cards at a spot that has proved good hospitality things can still grow in difficult soil.
It’s easy to forget what Saint Paul’s Market looked like before the disco ball, frozen margs and Persian kebabs arrived. When co-owners Oliver Press, Joe Schuppler, Tim Haggis, Sai Deethwa and James Fitzgibbons first entered the Mary Ann Street warehouse, there were holes in the floor, tar-covered bricks and a roof in desperate need of replacement.
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“We looked at a few places, but none of them quite ticked the box,” says Oliver, who also co-founded Liverpool’s hugely successful Baltic Market. “Then we found this place and could immediately see the vision. It was Baltic Market, but in Birmingham.”
One year after opening, the vision appears to have paid off. Around 300,000 people have passed through Saint Paul’s Market’s doors, including 28,000 in its most recent month alone. Its two floors contain 500 seats, two bars and eight independent kitchens, while its weekends now bring DJs programmed by Leftfoot, live music and the sort of pleasingly mixed crowd many hospitality venues claim to attract but few genuinely do.
You can visit with your nan for coffee, bring the kids for ice cream or arrive with mates for curry, pints and a determined assault on the frozen cocktail menu. On Saturday nights it gets lively in all the right ways, because food remains at its centre.
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“We see ourselves more as a massive restaurant than a big bar,” Oliver says. “It’s food first. There’s proper cutlery, proper plates and you’re sitting down to a proper meal. But on a Saturday night there’s a DJ and nightlife, if you want it.”
That distinction has been central to Saint Paul’s success. Rather than filling its kitchens with short-term street-food residencies from out-of-town traders, its founders recruited some of Birmingham’s strongest restaurant brands and gave them the space and time to bed in.
The current line-up spans fire-cooked Persian food from Colbeh, Thai plates and curries from Soi, Tiger Bites Pig’s bao, Chancer’s fried chicken, Corner Shop’s Detroit-style pizza and Indian street food from Zindiya. Oak ’n’ Roll supplies cinnamon rolls and Vietnamese coffee, while LA-POP handles the serious business of gelato lollies, cheesecake pops and sundaes.
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From the outset, Joe’s job was to bring the Birmingham knowledge. The man with the plan spent well over a decade eating around the city as the brains behind Independent Birmingham, building relationships with its indies and developing an audience prepared to follow his recommendations.
“From a selfish point of view, I wanted all the places I love eating in one location,” Joe says. “But it was about brand strength and consistency — people being able to come in and know they’re going to get excellent food.”
Oliver and the Baltic team, meanwhile, brought nine years of operational experience from Liverpool. “We’d made all the mistakes you could possibly make,” he says with the look of a man who means it. “We were confident we could take that knowledge to another city. Then Joe had this huge Independent Birmingham community behind him. It felt like: well, why wouldn’t it work?”
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That doesn’t mean it wasn’t frightening. Saint Paul’s Market represented a £1.5 million gamble and Baltic Market’s first major venture beyond Liverpool. Joe had been trying to make a Birmingham food hall happen for around six years, while the serious search for the right building took roughly two.
They found it beside Indian Brewery Taproom, just beyond Saint Paul’s Square, where the view towards the church and the area’s manufacturing history gave the project a sense of place. The original cranes have been picked out with spotlights, while colours and materials throughout the interior echo the building’s industrial fabric. It feels polished without having had its past scrubbed away.
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“It had to have that iconic feel,” Oliver says. “People walk in and stop to look at the building before they even look at the restaurants. We wanted it to feel new, but still part of what was already here.”
Crucially, it also feels entirely Birmingham. The kitchens are local, the taps showcase nearby breweries and collaborations extend to the city’s musicians, DJs and makers. Even when Oliver was encouraged to bring one of his own Liverpool businesses into the venue, he resisted. “I’d rather work with a local,” he says. “That’s where the love is. That's where the passion is. That's what people come for.”
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"CRUCIALLY, IT FEELS ENTIRELY BIRMINGHAM. THE KITCHENS ARE LOCAL, THE TAPS SHOWCASE NEARBY BREWERIES AND COLLABORATIONS EXTEND TO THE CITY’S MUSICIANS, DJs AND MAKERS."
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The market’s original traders remained in place for unusually long spells, partly because each was asked to invest in a substantial, properly equipped kitchen. Change, however, is necessary. Oak ’n’ Roll demonstrated that when its arrival prompted queues and a surge in online engagement. Whispers of new traders are doing the rounds, and they’re rather exciting ones at that. Watch this space.
The hope is that Saint Paul’s can also become an incubator. Oliver says around 20 former Baltic Market traders have subsequently opened businesses of their own. In Birmingham, the venue has already introduced Colbeh to a much wider audience, while Oak ’n’ Roll began as a new concept within the market.
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Its second year will also push the venue beyond food. Free board games, a chess club, family activities, artisan markets and football screenings are planned, alongside more live music and Leftfoot’s weekend DJs.
“We want to cement ourselves as part of the Jewellery Quarter community,” Joe says. “Not just as a food hall, but as a real hub.”
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To mark its first food-laden trip around the sun Saint Paul’s Market will host a five-day birthday knees-up from September 23 to 27.
Midland Press hosts a wine tasting on Wednesday, before jazz, soul and futurebeats singer-songwriter, Call Me Unique, performs on Friday. Expect happy-hour £5 Guinness and slushie cocktails.
The celebrations will also introduce Aperol on tap — yes, draught Aperol Spritzes — and a new self-serve Guinness machine. DJs take over all day Saturday, while the quite brilliant Birmingham Artisan Markets arrives for a bumper Sunday set-up. Add food specials from every trader and a boozy birthday-cake cocktail, and consider the candle well and truly blown out.
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In an exceptionally bruising period for hospitality, nobody at Saint Paul’s is pretending the job has been easy. Costs must be watched and no venue can afford to coast. But perhaps that pressure helps explain why this one feels so carefully considered.
“We invest so much time, energy and love into it,” Oliver says. “We’re trying to put soul into this place, you know? Real heart. Fingers crossed we've managed that.”
A year and 300,000 visitors later, it seems they have.
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Saint Paul's Market is open every Weds to Sun at 4 Mary Ann Street, B3 1RL.
Follow them on Instagram and Facebook.
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THE ART OF BEING FRAMED
For half a year now, The Jointworks has been regularly turning its Jewellery Quarter home over to artists and makers whose work it truly admires.
Jointworks Exhibits isn’t a traditional gallery, which is rather the point. Art lives alongside meetings, conversations and everyday creative graft, to be spotted and enjoyed by everyone passing through. The latest rotation is We’ve Been Framed, a brilliantly odd pop-culture show from AMPjam.
More than 60 new works have been created by leading movie-poster artists worldwide, each inspired not only by a film or TV show, but by the frame surrounding it. The result, as you can see below, is part illustration, part sculpture and entirely unlike anything currently sitting above your nan’s fireplace.
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It's attracted some serious names, too. Expect new works from world leading poster artists and pop culture illustrators like Matt Ferguson, Jock, Rob Jones, Tyler Stout, Tula Lotay and Matt Taylor
Ferguson is perhaps the biggest coup of the lot. The Sheffield-based artist and designer is one of the planet's most sought-after names in pop-culture art. He has created official artwork for Marvel, Lucasfilm and major franchises including Star Wars (see top) and Dune. His bold, graphic compositions often strip a film down to one unforgettable image.
Also exhibiting is Krzysztof Domaradzki, a Polish illustrator renowned for incredibly detailed alternative film posters, often layering portraits, scenes, symbols, typography and tiny Easter eggs into one densely composed pic. His subjects have included Blade Runner, Alien, The Shining, Joker, Akira, Interstellar and Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy. Here he's taken his pencil to Bruce Lee's Enter The Dragon in a nod to the serpent-wrapped frame above.
The exhibition launches with this event at 6pm on Friday, October 2 (book tickets if you're attending), and remains in place throughout the month, so you can also have a nose around whenever The Jointworks is open. Whichever option you choose, donations to Birmingham bereavement charity Edward’s Trust are very welcome.
All pieces will later be auctioned online, with every penny of profit going to the charity, too. Details
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PARK LIFE!
For one day only, several Jewellery Quarter parking spaces will be liberated from the tyranny of parallel parking and turned into miniature public parks.
Brum Park(ing) Day returns tomorrow (Sept 18), transforming bays along Caroline Street and Mary Street into creative, green and people-friendly spaces. Think less Ford Focus, more actual focus on how Birmingham’s streets might be used differently.
Part of an annual global movement, Park(ing) Day asks artists, designers, businesses and local communities to temporarily rethink space normally reserved for a single vehicle.
Last year’s inaugural Birmingham event proved such a success that organisers are bringing it back, with everything from lively community hubs and interactive displays to artistic installations and quiet, sanctuary-like spots for connecting with nature.
Each individually designed “parklet” will occupy just one or two parking bays, demonstrating that meaningful public space needn’t require acres of land, a huge budget or somebody cutting an enormous ribbon. Sometimes it just needs a little imagination and somewhere to put a bench.
The event is organised by design practice Define in partnership with the Jewellery Quarter BID, with contributors invited to shift a small part of the neighbourhood from grey to green for the day.
Brum Park(ing) Day takes place on Caroline Street and Mary Street, Jewellery Quarter, on Fri Sep 18. Visit brumparkingday.co.uk or follow @brumparkingday for details, updates and information on getting involved.
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MEET ME AT THE ART
Birmingham’s emerging artists have taken over two city-centre locations, with Birmingham Open 26 now on display across Snow Hill Square and Victoria Square.
More than 150 artists entered this year’s competition, responding to the simple but satisfyingly enormous theme of “Birmingham” through photography, painting, printmaking, illustration and mixed media.
The overall winner is photographer Kelly Hadley, whose A Birmingham Patchwork captures The Crown pub alongside a commercial wayfinding sign. Judges praised its “welcoming composition of found abstract colours” and depiction of the city’s vibrancy.
The image pictured here, though, is Gabriella Tarantonio’s wonderfully cheeky Meet Me on the Ramp. Featuring an instantly recognisable riff on the McDonald’s golden arches, it has a particular poignancy in Birmingham — a city where “meet me on the ramp” remains practically a navigational instruction, cultural reference and generational password rolled into one.
Kate Wolf was Highly Commended for linocut Wentworth Road Flats, while visitors can still vote for a third, People’s Choice Award, by scanning QR codes on site.
The free outdoor exhibition, created by Colmore Life, runs until Wednesday, Sep 30, when public voting also closes.
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YOUR SUBURB NEEDS YOU
Birmingham gave the world heavy metal and, less famously, the modern comic convention. High Vis Festival continues both traditions — presumably with fewer bats — as Kings Heath Comic Con returns for its second year.
Heading the free event is Mark Millar, making his first comic convention appearance in almost a decade. The Scottish writer made his name at DC and Marvel on titles including Superman: Red Son, The Ultimates, Civil War and Old Man Logan, before creating Wanted, Kick-Ass, Jupiter’s Legacy and Secret Service — the latter becoming the Kingsman film franchise.
He joins a formidable roster including 2000 AD alumni Phil Winslade, Ian Edginton and John McCrea, plus Beano artists Laura Howell and Hunt Emerson. Dozens of independent creators, artists and traders will also be crammed beneath one roof.
Returning from last year are the 501st Legion UK Garrison, whose alarmingly convincing Star Wars cosplayers proved a huge hit with families. There’ll also be an in-person charity art auction supporting Kings Heath Food Bank.
Organiser Olly MacNamee says landing Millar puts the comics-focused convention firmly on the map — without relying on TV celebrities.
High Vis runs at All Saints Community Centre this Saturday (Sep 19), from 10am to 5pm. Entry is free.
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Digbeth Dining Club serves up two heavyweight line-ups this weekend. The Beefy Boys headline Herbert’s Yard, alongside Beef on the Block, Greidy’s and Pink Ladies Donuts. Meanwhile, Dockworks Waterfront welcomes Bad Boy Wings, Smiths, Smokey Joe’s BBQ, Absolute Melt and What a Load of Waffle.
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Go mad for (legal) mushrooms at Birmingham Fungi Festival, returning to Highbury Hall and Park on Oct 17. Expect free family activities, food, a mushroom market, expert-led forays, workshops and talks. More
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Society Birmingham joins forces with Beak Brewery for Beers & Bites on Sep 30: six beers, five dishes from its street-food traders and a meet-the-brewer session. Tickets promise one exceptionally well-fed, slightly tipsy Wednesday night. Book
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Stewart Lee and director Michael Cumming present a 30-minute-expanded cut of punk anti-rockumentary King Rocker at MAC on Oct 20, which includes a hunt for Birmingham's Kong statue. The screening is followed by a Q&A with Birmingham cult hero Robert Lloyd. Tickets
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