STACK Wigan is opening next month and I have watched every brick of it

I have a confession. For months now, the highlight of my walk through Wigan town centre has been peering through the hoardings at the old Debenhams building to see what has changed overnight. So when I read this week that STACK Wigan is due to open next month, I may have done a small fist pump on the pavement like a dad who has just found a parking space outside the school.

What has actually been announced

The story comes from restaurantonline.co.uk, which reports that food hall operator STACK is opening its Wigan site in the former Debenhams store next month. That is the headline, and honestly that is all I needed to hear. I will link you to the original rather than rehash it, because they have the detail and I have the enthusiasm.

Why the building work has become my daily soap opera

If you live or work anywhere near Wigan you will know the Debenhams building. For a long time it sat there as a big reminder of what the high street used to be. Walking past an empty department store every day does something to your mood. It feels like the town has given up a bit.

Then the hoardings went up and the noise started, and I found myself slowing down every morning to see what was different. New windows one week. Vans and skips the next. Lads in hi-vis who have clearly got a job list longer than mine. I started reporting back to my wife at tea time like it was news. She has been very patient about it.

My stepson thinks it is hilarious that a grown man gets excited about scaffolding. But I think watching something get built in your own town, day by day, is genuinely good for you. It is the opposite of doom scrolling. You see progress with your own eyes.

Why a food hall is exactly what a working dad wants

Here is the practical bit. When you have kids, eating out is a negotiation. One wants pizza, one wants something they can eat with their hands, my wife wants something that is not beige, and I just want to sit down. A food hall solves that in one building. Everyone picks their own thing, nobody sulks, and you are not locked into one menu for the whole table.

It is also the sort of place you can do after work without booking three weeks ahead, which matters when your diary is already full of school runs and client calls. And if it brings a bit of life back to that corner of the town centre in the evening, that is good for every other business nearby too.

What I will be watching for

I am not going to pretend I know what the inside looks like yet, or what will be on offer, because I do not. All I know for certain is what the report says: it opens next month, in the old Debenhams. The rest I will find out the same way you will, by walking through the doors.

When it does open I will take the family down, pay my own money like always, and write it up honestly on here. That means prices, how long you queue, whether the kids actually ate anything, and whether I could get a decent coffee without a mortgage. If it is good I will say so. If the chips are soggy you will hear about it.

Until then, you will find me on the pavement outside, nose against the hoarding, counting down the days.