Copson Street and Withington Fruit & Veg: A Love Letter

After 33 years, my favourite shop in the world is changing owners.

After 33 years, it was announced on Tuesday (2^nd August) that Withington Fruit and Veg would be changing hands. The shop is the focal point of Withington’s high-street adjacent Copson Street, traditionally housing family shops, and the jewel in the crown of a special community. I spent a year living just beyond the end of Copson Street and had the privilege of striding the pavement of the Street with purpose heading to morning lectures, or staggering home in the early hours of the morning, often with a Dragon Burger Box in hand, a crucial pitstop between the bus stop and my bed.

Withington, to students in Manchester, is the older, slightly cooler sibling to Fallowfield. Those who don’t live in the postcode may come down occasionally to Fuel, the café-come-bar-come-venue-come-general place to sit and be, or the charity shops, but maybe not stray from the comfort of Wilmslow Road, the stem of student Manchester. However, Withington is a beautiful place to live because students live in (mostly!) harmony alongside permanent residents, and a mutual respect has been kindled between the two traditionally opposed groups in the community. Students are not permanent residents, but involve yourself with the community, and a nourishing environment is there for you to enjoy, away from the more hedonistic and ephemeral parts of university living.

The happiest I’ve been in Manchester is the moments of pause that I can notice the beauty in the ordinary. Away from the skyscrapers of Deansgate, towering with promise and fear in equal measure, Copson Street exemplifies this. The street has punctuated my existence outside my house for the last year, walking its length to get to and from the bus stop. Each shop, maybe except from the couple of high-street chains, has clear love poured into it, and serves the community. There’s the chaos and the magic of the competing discount stores, inexplicably displaying beach balls to buy all year round, despite the omnipresent threat of Mancunian rain, and 34 miles away from the beach. There’s Hollywood Shakes and Burgers, that I can’t remember ever seeing it shut. The Japanese restaurant Kyotoya’s door is obscured by an intriguing curtain. This is all within the space of twenty metres.

The Italian restaurant Levantino’s owner always has chef whites on, which made myself and my housemate discern that he’s a ‘serious guy’. The Coffee House Café provides breakfast to the community at a third of the price of Withington high street’s flagship (and severely disappointing) brunch spot. Taka Sushi has opened my eyes to deep fried salmon, and the lovely owner even made my housemate some sushi as a birthday present. Martin’s Bakery’s Jamaican Beef Bake has a flavour that makes you remember when and where you were when you first tried it. Nassar’s falafel wrap makes you return to the cashpoint. Copson Street houses enough life to merit a James Joyce-style narration. You can’t be certain how all these businesses ended up on the street, but you can be sure that they’re glad they have. It’s a bustling and joyful stretch of South Manchester, and a microcosm of everything I love about the M14 and M20 postcodes, where everything happens.

And this leaves Withington Fruit and Veg. The shop is permanently stocked with a range of enticing ingredients, from all kinds of cuisines, that has facilitated my ongoing love affair with cooking. Rehydrating fried oyster mushrooms in soy sauce and garlic becomes a possibility when Withington Fruit and Veg supplies all the tools to do so, at a very reasonable price. We spend a lot of time shopping, and it’s a task that can be extremely mundane. Withington Fruit and Veg, to me, is energising and inspirational.

I’ve had a long-running love for cooking. However, this has never particularly extended to shopping for food before I came to Withington Fruit and Veg. Instead of being simply a conduit to be able to cook, I saw wonder in the actual process of shopping. Several of my closest friends have gone through tough times this year, and I’ve learnt that the most practical and effective thing I can do is cook for them. I’ve made several bowls of heartbroken noodles, and even a two-course anxiety curry. It’s the most practical form of showing love when words of support aren’t enough; everyone needs to eat and turning that from a task into a celebration of food has been effective in providing some levity to my friends, even for just one night. I would always shop at Withington Fruit and Veg to do this, taking pleasure in the process of picking the ingredients, and taking mental notes of more things to try and incorporate into my expanding repertoire.

It's shops like this that make communities, and they deserve to be remembered not for the name, but by the people that ran it and nurtured the business into being the pillar of community that it is. I sincerely hope that the new owners of the shop carry this flame, but respect and thanks must be given to the outgoing owners, and if this bit of writing serves as nothing else, let it be archived that Withington Fruit and Veg means a great deal to me, and a lot of my friends. Thank you.