Date of closure: July 2022
Address (for reference only):
Mecca Bingo (Lost Halls)
Smith Street
Rochdale
OL16 1YH
Rochdale’s Smith Street club was a proper big modern Mecca, not a converted cinema or theatre, but a large purpose-built leisure building constructed by 1990 and fitted out as a bingo hall around 1999. It seated an impressive 1,600 players, right alongside what became the Number One Riverside council offices and close to the town’s bus and tram interchange, making it accessible whether players drove in or arrived by public transport. It offered the full late-period Mecca package, with traditional paper bingo, electronic touchscreen games, a slots arcade with machine jackpots up to £500, live entertainment, a licensed bar and hot food, alongside access to the National Bingo Game with jackpots advertised up to £250,000. Mecca marketed it explicitly as a community hub, and local retail surveys confirmed it as an established regional bingo destination alongside clubs like Gala Harpurhey and Mecca Oldham.
The club ran for roughly 20 years before closing, with Rochdale Council’s gambling register confirming the bingo premises licence was surrendered on 7 July 2022. The building has since been given a genuine second life rather than falling derelict. It was taken over by R-Kix, a youth football and sports organisation, and converted into a large indoor sports facility with four small-sided football pitches, a running track, cricket practice lanes, a gym and a sports bar called Box2Box, now operating as R-Kix Performance Centre. There’s a nice symmetry to its story: the same huge space that once held 1,600 bingo players is still bringing large numbers of Rochdale residents together under one roof, just for football and cricket rather than bingo cards.
Other Lost Halls In The Area
- Middleton Top Ten Bingo – Acre Road
- Manchester Belle Vue Buzz Bingo – Kirkmanshulme Lane
- Manchester Mecca Bingo – Derby Street
- Manchester Mecca Bingo – Levenshulme
- Manchester Mecca Bingo – Preston Street
- Manchester Buckingham Bingo – Wilmslow Road
- Manchester Harpurhey Buzz Bingo – North City Shopping Centre
- Manchester Wythenshawe Buzz Bingo – Rowlandsway
Love going, staff very friendly and helpful.
The girl who calls the bingo numbers calls them too fast. She does not give you time to dab your numbers, she needs to be told to slow down as I have been going to bingo for many years. I can play bingo but not to the extent if she is calling at 100 miles a minute. I have missed numbers my self. But can management have a word as older people cannot keep up to mark their ticket. No wonder the bingo hall is so empty. Need to have different bingo callers with a clear voice and at a slower pace.
I went to Mecca Bingo on Sunday for the first time with friends who are regulars. It was Christmas Lunch, live music and then Bingo games. WOW!! How much Bingo has changed!! I had a ball. The dinner was honestly the best Christmas Dinner I have ever had (apart from mum’s). Champaign flowing, box of chocolates on arrival and bingo games. Oh, and not to forget the topless waiters, all for under a tenner… the atmosphere was brilliant. The staff worked extremely hard. Well done mecca. you showed bingo isn’t just for Gran’s anymore. I will be coming back.