SEASONS eatings and pizza love to all.

A Cultural Quarter venue is getting into the spirit of Christmas in a unique way.

Hernando’s Hideaway in Sankey Street has launched a New York style ‘by the slice’ pizza shop within the bar with a festive twist. Among the classics like pepperoni and Hawaiian, you can get a Christmas pizza with a turkey gravy base, chicken breast pieces, pigs in blankets, honey roast parsnips, sage and onion stuffing and a cranberry sauce drizzle.

Steven, a former Great Sankey High student, said: “We made the Christmas pizza for the first time last week and we got a good reaction. A couple of people weren’t sure because they thought gravy on a pizza sounded strange but they really liked it when they tried it.”

Steven and his wife Jenna have run the music bar, which was formerly Jeniric’s Chinese restaurant, for two and a half years and they have always had plans to eventually make use of the kitchen which they partly converted into a pool room.

The 33-year-old added: “We didn’t do anything with it for a while. I’d just started and I was trying to do everything myself and it was just too much to try and be in the kitchen and be running the bar at the same time.”

But now hungry drinkers can buy a slice or even a whole 18ins pizza at evenings and weekends with the dough made fresh in-house every day.

And soon pizza deliveries will also be available through the Just Eat website – even when the bar is closed. Steven, who has lived in Warrington since 1999, also enjoys being part of the ‘community’ helping to shape the Cultural Quarter.

He added: “There’s a lot of nice bars and restaurants here and everyone’s striving to make it a good place to go out.

“There are a few new places opening like The Volstead around the corner in Bold Street, Ian Fitzsimons from the Auctions Rooms is opening a new coffee place in Sankey Street and there’s new Italian restaurants opening in the Treasury Building and in Cairo Street by Mojo. We all seem to know each other around here.

“We chat all the time about ways we can work together. It’s a great place and with the development that’s going on in Bridge Street the town is finally getting its act together. If you come round here on a Friday or Saturday night it’s booming.”

Hernando’s Hideaway used to be one of Viola Beach’s favourite haunts before the Warrington band’s tragic deaths in Sweden in February 2016. They would go there to drink and rehearse and drummer Jack Dakin even carved his named into the bar.

Steven, from Kingswood, said: “It happened when he was drunk and sat at the bar. It’s part of the furniture now. Jack was always up to mad stuff.

“He was good at swinging off the ropes above the bar. He was a strong lad. He could pull himself up on one hand. They used to walk in here in a line with no money and wearing outrageous clothes. The last time I saw them we ended up having a jam in here. We had a great night.”