Manuel & Webster

Messrs. Manuel & Webster, Italian Warehousemen, Grocers, Wine Merchants, and Confectioners, 137, Buchanan Street.—

    One of the most notable of the many attractive establishments in Buchanan Street, Glasgow, is that conducted by Messrs. Manuel & Webster, the well-known Italian warehousemen, family grocers, confectioners, and wine merchants. This business was originally founded by Mr. Isaac Baxter, who was the first Italian warehouseman in Glasgow. The firm’s headquarters have been centred in Buchanan Street for thirty years, and half of that period has been passed at the present address. Here the premises occupied are spacious, commodious, and handsomely appointed throughout, and every detail of equipment and desirable facility has manifestly received the most careful attention. The warehouse has a wide and commanding frontage, and runs back to a very considerable depth from Buchanan Street. The whole of the interior is admirably fixtured, and affords every accommodation for the effective laying out and proper shelving of goods.

    Beneath the shop is a bakehouse completely equipped with every improved mechanical and labour-saving convenience, and here the firm employ a numerous staff in the making of bakes and superior pastry of all descriptions. The stocks held embrace everything that can properly be classed under the heads of family groceries, general confectionery, or Italian warehousemen’s sundries. The stock of teas and coffees is particularly worthy of attention, the best growths of all the noted productive sources being most creditably represented, and several special blends are prominent in this department.

    In superior wines and spirits, in the best classes of groceries, and in all fine lines of foreign and domestic comestibles, preserves, soups, and edible delicacies of various descriptions, the assortment of goods stocked by Messrs. Manuel & Webster leaves absolutely nothing to be desired. Everything is, in short, of the best class distinctly, and to the maintenance of this high standard of excellence the whole care and consideration of the house are devoted.

    Specialities that deserve a word of individual mention have been developed in ices, which are produced in shapes and freezers for dinner and evening parties ; also in souflets and fruschies to order, and in French cosaques and bon-bons. The house enjoys a fame that needs no accentuation here for its Scotch buns and shortbread, its plum, seed, sultana, pound, ginger, and Madeira cakes, and for its marriage and christening cakes. All these goods are of exclusively first-rate quality. The firm are also agents for Hubbard’s celebrated rusks, of which they have always a large and fresh stock on hand. In short, there is no more thoroughly representative Italian warehouse in Western Scotland than that of Messrs. Manuel & Webster. The house controls a very large and widespread trade.

    The business is capably conducted in every respect by Messrs. Manuel & Webster, its sole principals and proprietors, and no effort is spared by them to keep properly abreast of the times in every matter of progress and commercial enterprise, and to maintain the high reputation for straightforward dealing and first-class goods which has won for this house the large and distinguished patronage it enjoys.

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