Last week, Dan Morris, managing director of Escape to Freight Island, wrote to his staff to tell them their employment with the company would be terminated with a week’s notice. They would need to apply for a role with a company called Peppermint Events, which was taking over the bars.
Featuring phrases that seemed designed to cause an uproar — “We are excited to inform you,” and “we would be delighted for you to continue to work at Freight Island,” — the letter caused a bonfire on Reddit and offended staff, many of whom work on zero-hours contracts and have earned little or nothing from the business this year. “It was just like, what the fuck? Are you kidding?” one worker told The Mill.
What’s a place like Freight Island — an innovative pandemic-era success story that opened in 2020 to great acclaim — doing handing over its bar operations and insulting its staff? And are there broader lessons here about Manchester’s hospitality sector, which has enjoyed major political backing and steroidal growth in recent years? We’ve spent a few days trying to work that out.
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