Wigan's Casino De Cuba to re-open after fire

Casino De Cuba, in Millgate, has been closed since its outdoor area went up in flames in July.

The popular establishment announced on its social media page that it would re-open tonight from 7pm with a huge relaunch party, featuring a live DJ and special offers on drinks.

And bosses have revealed their plans to take the business in a new direction following the reopening.

Manager Josh Smith said: “We’re excited to get going again, after eight weeks away.

“It’s been a long time coming, but we’re ready to go. A lot of people have missed us, and we’re coming back with some slight changes, a bit of a different vibe.”

He went on: “We’re going to be focussing on the restaurant side of things. Just before the summer, everything was booming because of our secret garden. We were devastated about it setting on fire. So it’s not going to be our main focus this time around, the garden for now is going to wait.

“We’re going to start work on it soon and hopefully that will be running again soon, but that’s a goal for the future. Now, we’ll be a late night cocktail bar upstairs still, but focussing more on the food.

He added: “We think it’s what more people want. You get it in the big cities, that’s more when the restaurants are. We want to bring more of that from Manchester into Wigan.

"We don’t want to have heavy music, we want that chilled vibe. And awesome customer service, from staff who are very attentive. That’s what we want to bring back to Wigan.”

The three-storey blaze broke out shortly before 2am on July 11. It was so fierce that firefighters had to douse the flames before they could even gain entry to the property.

Smoke could be seen for miles around and eye witnesses reported flames soaring into the air.

On arrival firefighters found that the outside courtyard area was engulfed by the blaze.

“Crews went in and managed to fight the flames back,” said Wigan watch manager Glyn McGann. “We managed to push them back enough to gain entry to the courtyard and extinguish them.

“The fire had spread to the building and there were broken windows and superficial damage.

“The heat was very intense. The nature of the materials burning meant that there was a lot of heat coming from it.

It took crews around three and a half hours to get the flames under control.