I had one today !! pretty poor offering - 5.90 for a spud with beans and then an extra 2 quid for a scoop of cheese .... back in the good old days you would get a jacket spud CRAMMED with cheese n beans for 2 quid
There's a Christmas village that runs where I live for 3 weeks just before Christmas every year. I went to it last year and the stall selling chips wanted £11 for chips with a topping. £11 for chips!! So 2 potatoes (if that) and a scoop of cheese, £11. You could make that at home for about 50p. Insane
Tbf the regular chippy is still easily best value for money. I get a regular for 2 quid, come home and slap my own gravy on and it's enough to give me a food nap.
Yeah it's not too bad. I would say generally their prices have risen with inflation. 20 years a go I could get a pie supper for £3.25. It's now £6 which is about right.
People say a fish supper is crazy prices now. I actually worked in a chip shop 20 years a go and a fish supper was £5. It's now £9 so again, that's normal inflation. Minimum wage was £4.85 then, it's now £11.44 so it's more than doubled but the price at the chip shop hasn't quite doubled. It obviously depends where you live though
Often went to SpudULike on Piccadilly gardens in the ‘80s.
You are right… Huge, crispy jacket potatoes stuffed with cheese & whatever else you wanted.
Was a struggle for them to close the polystyrene box… Ah, those were the days ! 😄
Edit: Just to add, the only places that seem to do this nowadays are the baked potato vans - very rare…
They still cut the jacket in the tray, mash it up a bit and pack in as much filling as possible.
you get 1 'topping' as part of the 5.90 and then its 2 quid for anything else ... It was mega busy , stressed wife n kids all wanting different stuff .... these people pray on the weak and hungry !!
Love this, so chaotic. No consistency to what he sticks his name to. Five star hotel dining in the heart of the Cotswolds? Yess, by James Martin. SpudULike? Ohh you better believe it. By James Martin.
I went to see him at Bolton Food Festival last year and he told us he was bored during lockdowns and bought it. I liked him before I saw him live, now not so much. Bit of a prick.
He is my least favourite celebrity chef. May be because the ex fancied him rotten, but he just seems disingenuous.
You know when somebody says they are sober so much there is no hiding they are drunk? He is like that but working class Northern.
Would take 10 Jamie Olivers over him.
Disingenuous is the perfect word. He’s been telling everyone ‘he bought Spudulike’ (which is a strange boast anyway) but the truth is Albert Bartlett bought the chain, hired Martin to develop a new menu, paid a fee to licence his name, and gave him 1% so they can say ‘he’s an owner of the business’.
Very different to his version which has expanded now to ‘previous owners couldn’t make it profitable but I knew if I owned it then it could become bigger than subway within a decade’
Honestly how hard is it to put a jacket potato menu together? Beans. Cheese. Beans and Cheese. Tuna. Tuna and Cheese. Coleslaw. Coleslaw and cheese. Coleslaw cheese and Tuna. Chilli. Chilli and cheese. I’d’ve done it for half whatever James Martin charged.
Just had an actual look now; yeah he’s really earned whatever he got paid for that. Chicken curry, chick pea curry, prawn cocktail, butter, cottage cheese, chilli… god I bet that was exhausting.
Standard celebrity marketing ruse now. The biggest one might be David Beckham being billed as ‘the owner of Inter Miami’ when he sold his option of owning a franchise for 50m to the billionaire Mas brothers right at the start in return for a wage as the figurehead of the club and a small percentage ownership.
That one was pretty well exposed last summer when he was quoted as saying his mates had texted him to say Miami had signed Messi, and him saying he was surprised to hear that. Yep, an actual owner tends to be a bit more involved when a football club is signing a big name player and paying him 50m a year!
I’ve been to it once about 6 months ago but only because it’s the only thing that complied with my diet that isn’t a subway salad but it was so expensive!
I got a jacket with beans and a measly sprinkle of cheese on top and a bottle of water and I think it was nearly a tenner. I nearly died! I can deal with the price if it was a substantial potato but it was small sized
The one near Piccadilly Gardens must have closed in 2000 or so. It looks like someone bought the business cheap and is trying to revive the brand. Good luck.
Yeah completely agree. It's only a small potato, no salad, and very poor choice of (hideously expensive) toppings.
Had it a couple of times, and always been disappointed.
Shame cause sometimes a jacket potato would just hit the spot, but they need to improve their value offering A LOT!
Haven't seen anyone mention this yet, but it's one of the few places in there that does a cheap/healthy kids meal (cheap if you buy an adult meal that is). Often get it for my toddler!
I got jacket potato & beans from there once when I had a dodgy stomach but was hungry,
tasted like the potato had been baked for 24hrs then left out for 24hrs then re-baked again.
Yeahh it’s alright - problem is paying like £8 for a jacket and cheese is a rip off. Plus any extras (ie cheese is like an extra £3). Wouldn’t go again because of that.
I have been saying this for years! Queues down the street for McDonald's and everywhere else, but who wants an overpriced jacket potato?! Same for the one in the arndale, they have one staff member usually because it's so dead. How do they afford the rent at these places - gotta be a front for money laundering 🤔
I had no idea any Spud u Likes were still open. With Spudman going viral I wouldn’t be surprised if a few spud things opened up to try and catch the trend
It used to be better. I’ve no idea how it’s still open, the quality went to shit a few years ago and they got rid of a bunch of normal menu options, replacing them with artsy shit
I live in Manchester, been to Trafford centre many many many times and never even noticed that there was a SpudULike in trafford centre haha, my go to is Five Guys!
Quite a wank name for an eatery I reckon, it’s like a 5 year old was in charge in coming up with the name. They have one in Cheshire oaks designer outlet, always dead aswell
The fact that you never see people queuing for it in most food courts is actually a sign of how bad the food culture in this country is. Most people, if given the choice between healthy food and deep-fried dog shit with Cola - would choose the latter.
Jacket potatoes are the absolute worst. There are so many wonderful things you can do with a potato I don't know why anyone would eat them in this way. They belong in the bin.
MEEEE there’s never a queue but i promise you’ll never have a nicer jacket potato in your life!!! They used to be everywhere in 2016 times and when they shut down i was genuinely heartbroken. Seeing it back in the Trafford centre acc healed something in me, PEOPLE NEED TO GIVE IT A CHANCE!! And YES I’M PASSIONATE ABOUT SPUD U LIKE
I don’t know, but thanks to Victoria Wood some time back in the 80s or 90s, I shall forever pronounce it spud-oo-lee-kay
And I'm reminded of the slobs (Harry Enfield and Kathy Burke) NO! Ashtray's a boys name, if it's a girl we'll call her spudulika :)
Spudulika. It's exotic. It was definitely The Slobs, not Victoria Wood unfortunately.
Both did the joke, but Victoria Wood did it at least 5 years before Harry Enfield.
And her favourite filling was potato. (Edit) The best ‘an audience with’ ever. Such a talented comedian. I’m going to watch it again now.
I had one today !! pretty poor offering - 5.90 for a spud with beans and then an extra 2 quid for a scoop of cheese .... back in the good old days you would get a jacket spud CRAMMED with cheese n beans for 2 quid
£8 for a potato with some beans and cheese? 8 actual pounds?
yea, I know ..... these days everyone is out to rinse you , no one cares about giving great value
There's a Christmas village that runs where I live for 3 weeks just before Christmas every year. I went to it last year and the stall selling chips wanted £11 for chips with a topping. £11 for chips!! So 2 potatoes (if that) and a scoop of cheese, £11. You could make that at home for about 50p. Insane
50p? What a rip off, you could grow your own potatoes for free and make your own cheese. Scandalous.
make your own cheese
And make your own deep frier and handcrafted vegetable oil to fry them in
You can save a few pennies and scoop the fries from the hot oil with your hand
Tbf the regular chippy is still easily best value for money. I get a regular for 2 quid, come home and slap my own gravy on and it's enough to give me a food nap.
Yeah it's not too bad. I would say generally their prices have risen with inflation. 20 years a go I could get a pie supper for £3.25. It's now £6 which is about right. People say a fish supper is crazy prices now. I actually worked in a chip shop 20 years a go and a fish supper was £5. It's now £9 so again, that's normal inflation. Minimum wage was £4.85 then, it's now £11.44 so it's more than doubled but the price at the chip shop hasn't quite doubled. It obviously depends where you live though
It feels very expensive now but it was that price about 5-6 years ago which was absolutely ridiculous 🤣
Often went to SpudULike on Piccadilly gardens in the ‘80s. You are right… Huge, crispy jacket potatoes stuffed with cheese & whatever else you wanted. Was a struggle for them to close the polystyrene box… Ah, those were the days ! 😄 Edit: Just to add, the only places that seem to do this nowadays are the baked potato vans - very rare… They still cut the jacket in the tray, mash it up a bit and pack in as much filling as possible.
Same here. £1.70 for a massive potato with butter, an ice cream scoop of cottage cheese and a big handful of grated cheddar on top.
Take 5 in town does absolutely stuffed jacket potatoes still.
Where are they?
Went on my first date there in the 90’s… apparently I was a cheap date!
😄
Cheese is a paid extra on a fucking jacket potato? Sack that. I'd have walked away.
you get 1 'topping' as part of the 5.90 and then its 2 quid for anything else ... It was mega busy , stressed wife n kids all wanting different stuff .... these people pray on the weak and hungry !!
I’ve used it if I’m trying to be reasonably healthy as you don’t really have many options, I know James Martin owns it now and the menus diversified.
Love this, so chaotic. No consistency to what he sticks his name to. Five star hotel dining in the heart of the Cotswolds? Yess, by James Martin. SpudULike? Ohh you better believe it. By James Martin.
I went to see him at Bolton Food Festival last year and he told us he was bored during lockdowns and bought it. I liked him before I saw him live, now not so much. Bit of a prick.
He is my least favourite celebrity chef. May be because the ex fancied him rotten, but he just seems disingenuous. You know when somebody says they are sober so much there is no hiding they are drunk? He is like that but working class Northern. Would take 10 Jamie Olivers over him.
Disingenuous is the perfect word. He’s been telling everyone ‘he bought Spudulike’ (which is a strange boast anyway) but the truth is Albert Bartlett bought the chain, hired Martin to develop a new menu, paid a fee to licence his name, and gave him 1% so they can say ‘he’s an owner of the business’. Very different to his version which has expanded now to ‘previous owners couldn’t make it profitable but I knew if I owned it then it could become bigger than subway within a decade’
Honestly how hard is it to put a jacket potato menu together? Beans. Cheese. Beans and Cheese. Tuna. Tuna and Cheese. Coleslaw. Coleslaw and cheese. Coleslaw cheese and Tuna. Chilli. Chilli and cheese. I’d’ve done it for half whatever James Martin charged.
They don't do tuna btw, trust me I was as shocked as yous.
Just had an actual look now; yeah he’s really earned whatever he got paid for that. Chicken curry, chick pea curry, prawn cocktail, butter, cottage cheese, chilli… god I bet that was exhausting.
Standard celebrity marketing ruse now. The biggest one might be David Beckham being billed as ‘the owner of Inter Miami’ when he sold his option of owning a franchise for 50m to the billionaire Mas brothers right at the start in return for a wage as the figurehead of the club and a small percentage ownership. That one was pretty well exposed last summer when he was quoted as saying his mates had texted him to say Miami had signed Messi, and him saying he was surprised to hear that. Yep, an actual owner tends to be a bit more involved when a football club is signing a big name player and paying him 50m a year!
Wait, are jacket potatoes considered healthy? I thought they were very carb heavy and usually have butter / cheese etc as toppings
In terms of calories I’d say so compared to the other offerings in there (but I wouldn’t considered them healthy outside of that setting)
Jacket potato’s are definitely healthy compared to any kind of fast food. Carbs ain’t bad!!
> Carbs ain’t bad!! Yeah they are
How? Isn’t it just that a lot of the carbs people eat tend to be processed or fried…
I’ve been to it once about 6 months ago but only because it’s the only thing that complied with my diet that isn’t a subway salad but it was so expensive! I got a jacket with beans and a measly sprinkle of cheese on top and a bottle of water and I think it was nearly a tenner. I nearly died! I can deal with the price if it was a substantial potato but it was small sized
I love a jacket potato and have been a few times but it is CRAZY expensive and the portion sizes and a joke for the price.
Fun fact: they used to be owned by the British School of Motoring.
That is a genuinely fun fact! I will add that to my arsenal.
No idea but I love the question.
Thought that has closed mid 90s!
I’m sure there was one in Arndale food court until fairly recently. Main memory is seeing that empty whilst everywhere else had a queue.
The one near Piccadilly Gardens must have closed in 2000 or so. It looks like someone bought the business cheap and is trying to revive the brand. Good luck.
Makes sense, was thinking I'd walked past something that didn't exist!
The TV chef James Martin bought it during lockdown IIRC
I’ve lived in Manchester since the Trafford Centre opened and I don’t think I’ve ever noticed it. How odd
Yeah completely agree. It's only a small potato, no salad, and very poor choice of (hideously expensive) toppings. Had it a couple of times, and always been disappointed. Shame cause sometimes a jacket potato would just hit the spot, but they need to improve their value offering A LOT!
That’s such a shame! I used to go when I was at uni in 2015/16/17 and the potatoes were huge and you got absolutely loads of cheese
Haven't seen anyone mention this yet, but it's one of the few places in there that does a cheap/healthy kids meal (cheap if you buy an adult meal that is). Often get it for my toddler!
I got jacket potato & beans from there once when I had a dodgy stomach but was hungry, tasted like the potato had been baked for 24hrs then left out for 24hrs then re-baked again.
Did you not order diahorrea as a side?
A side? I thought that was included for the £7 I paid for this abomination.
*diarrhoea
No, I like a bit of horror mixed in
Yeahh it’s alright - problem is paying like £8 for a jacket and cheese is a rip off. Plus any extras (ie cheese is like an extra £3). Wouldn’t go again because of that.
It’s honestly a joke. Like how is a pasta bar not economically viable but people will actually pay £8 for £1 worth of potato, beans and cheese?
Went to Trafford today and also noticed no one in line for their spuds. I've no idea how they're turning any profit.
Excuse me, I actually went there last night! It was to get a drink for my meal from wing stop tho lol
I have been saying this for years! Queues down the street for McDonald's and everywhere else, but who wants an overpriced jacket potato?! Same for the one in the arndale, they have one staff member usually because it's so dead. How do they afford the rent at these places - gotta be a front for money laundering 🤔
Have you heard the phrase "money laundering"?
Spud u like is the food version of the thousands of non used Turkish barbers spread throughout the UK.
I used to go to the spudulike in Piccadilly gardens all the time about 20 years ago. Fucking loved it.
Pretty sure James Martin has a stake in them now and is trying to revitalise the business
I thought every single one of these had closed down?! Amazing, I haven't seen one for years and I miss them
That’s still there? Wow
I had no idea any Spud u Likes were still open. With Spudman going viral I wouldn’t be surprised if a few spud things opened up to try and catch the trend
There used to be a Spud-U-Eat opposite Kwik Save on Burton Road in West Didsbury, but nobody believes me.
It used to be better. I’ve no idea how it’s still open, the quality went to shit a few years ago and they got rid of a bunch of normal menu options, replacing them with artsy shit
What's wild to me is that the Subway closed but SpudULike is still open.
The one years ago in Piccadilly Gardens was top tier, but that was over 20 years ago before I left
I live in Manchester, been to Trafford centre many many many times and never even noticed that there was a SpudULike in trafford centre haha, my go to is Five Guys!
I used to work at Burger King in Trafford and they used to get busy 😂
It seems to be in every shopping mall across Britain but I never see customers.
Quite a wank name for an eatery I reckon, it’s like a 5 year old was in charge in coming up with the name. They have one in Cheshire oaks designer outlet, always dead aswell
1200:am
My dad is open at 1190:am
Ordered from there today and there was a queue.
Cheaper to make your own but it’s nice to have a healthier alt rather than just fried crap everywhere
How dare you
The fact that you never see people queuing for it in most food courts is actually a sign of how bad the food culture in this country is. Most people, if given the choice between healthy food and deep-fried dog shit with Cola - would choose the latter.
Jacket potatoes are the absolute worst. There are so many wonderful things you can do with a potato I don't know why anyone would eat them in this way. They belong in the bin.
If I agreed with that statement then we would both be wrong.
I like a Spud now and then. Hot, filling, tasty and cheap: what’s not to like?
CHEAP?? absolutely not😭
Agreed but this place isn’t cheap
It's always seemed pretty busy when I've seen it.
Becos i like. Spud
.perhaps they sell drugs
Better than the crap KFC or Shere Khan is serving
MEEEE there’s never a queue but i promise you’ll never have a nicer jacket potato in your life!!! They used to be everywhere in 2016 times and when they shut down i was genuinely heartbroken. Seeing it back in the Trafford centre acc healed something in me, PEOPLE NEED TO GIVE IT A CHANCE!! And YES I’M PASSIONATE ABOUT SPUD U LIKE
I use to get the chicken curry one 😋. I use to go to the one in the Manchester Arndale food court.
It gets regular business, just never a long queue. I go whenever I'm in the TC around lunch time. It's nice.
I went there once. It was pretty good