Serving 20 different flavours of hot chocolate, Knoops has proved to be a wild success in London’s Covent Garden, Cambridge, and Brighton, and it’s time to bring the choccy fun up North to Manchester. The shop will open on the prestigious corner of Cross Street and South King Street, a fittingly boutique location for this indulgent experience.
The brand, founded by German-born Jens Knoop in Rye, East Sussex, in 2013, specialises in hot chocolate, dubbing themselves as the masters of “expertly crafted chocolate drinks”. Knoops Manchester is now open to the public and boasts 14 indoor seats, and all visitors will be perfectly immersed into the wonderful world of Knoopology when they visit.
Knoops has said: “We’re thrilled to be opening our first Knoops store up north this Spring! Whether you’re at university, a local or just visiting Manchester, pop in for a Knoops hot chocolate, mocha or baked goods.”
Knoopology is described as “the ultimate personalisation process and is a four-step method”. Individuals choose their preferred hot or cold drink, followed by their chocolate percentage, then their milk, before finally enhancing their beverage with flavoursome add-ons. The drink is poured out as a smooth hot chocolate, or over cold milk and ice for iced chocolate. The drink can be blended with ice cream, for a delicious milkshake. Hot chocolates and iced chocolates using 54 percent chocolate or above can be made vegan.
Menus at Knoops list percentages of the chocolate from 28 percent white to 44 percent milk all the way up to 70 percent dark and 100 percent extra dark. All of the varieties are available as hot chocolates, and six of are also available as milkshakes.
In addition to the Manchester site, Knoops will be opening stores in Knightsbridge and Bath, as part of its strategy to ‘do for chocolate drinks what Starbucks did for coffee‘. They’re also planning on opening a whopping 100 new UK stores in the next five years – we love the hustle!
A spokesperson expressed that Knoops already has a base of Mancunian fans as visitors to other stores, so seemed like the natural progression to open a store here. As Northerners, it’s also nice to see a premium, South-based brand looking at Manchester as a hub for it’s Northern output, as its efforts have been very much focused on stocking the likes of Harrods and catering to the premium customer. It seems to us the move shows a certain expansion of what the brand means, and that attitude is certain to do well in our city.
Knoops is set to open its 10th and first Northern store in Manchester on April 21 and can be found at 68 Cross Street, M2 4JQ.