McCalls

Nasty staff and low quality fruit and vegetables. Good for class of people that live in here I suppose. Wouldn’t recommend to someone who is looking for fresh and quality products!

Church Street Market is Manchester city centre’s oldest market. McCall’s greengrocers harks back to the glory days of Church Street Market when there were 22 fruit & veg barrows on Church Street — McCall’s is now the last of the breed. With cutthroat supermarkets elbowing into the city centre, you might think McCall’s something of a dying breed — but you’d be wrong.
Following a Unilocal tip-​off from Emma-​Louise H — we’re both fans of Strawberry Garden greengrocers in the Arndale Market — I headed down to the new purpose-​built market on the corner of Church Street and High Street. I really couldn’t be more impressed with McCall’s huge (quadruple-​sized) greengrocers stall. They have the whole range — from old-​fashioned soup vegetables, apples and oranges, to Afro-​Caribbean and all the Asian specialities as well.
And everything could not be fresher. I filled a whole bag with ingredients for my version of ‘vegetal verde’ — Italian spinach, fennel, asparagus and coriander leaf — and not even a slightly yellowing or wilted leaf in sight! And cheap as well — coriander and spinach at just 60p a bunch! On the exotics, all your yams, plantains, cassava are there, plus a central island of Afro-​Caribbean dried goods as McCall’s are obviously catering for that market. But also on the South Asian front, both white and green pak choi, lemongrass plus some others. Everything is clearly laid out, labelled, and priced, and one of the two McCall brothers who own the stall was there to serve me — so knowledgeable customer service is at hand if you need it.
Last but not least, this place serves as a piece of living history and a link to the past — the walls are covered with a series of large photos telling the story of McCall’s fruit & veg stalls from the 1920s.
Note: Read more about the history and redevelopment of Church Street Market and McCall’s here:

Sitting directly opposite a Co-​operative supermarket and just down the road from a Tesco Express, you might fear for the livelihood of a place like McCalls.
It’s an independent fruit & veg stall taking up a couple of the units in the new Church Street Market.
They’ve got a great range of fruit and veg and everything looks fresh. They’ve also got a few curveballs that mean you can get specialist fruit and veg here that you can’t get in mainstream supermarkets. Furthermore, their prices are competitive and you can get some friendly customer service on the way. Choose McCalls over Tesco any day of the week.