Wigan Pier Starco - featuring the outrageous Crystal Starr

N.B. It appears, from a few Facebook comments at the bottom of this page, that the Wigan Pier may have closed down.

Crystal Starr now has a new venue, "Crystals Palace", situated in the area known as "The Patch".

More details can be found here.

The Wigan Pier Starco is found just behind that complex of bars and clubs and should not be confused with the "Original Wigan Pier", which is a venue that is mainly a restaurant, situated in Torviscas.

At the Starco Wigan Pier, the accent is very much on entertainment. But that's not all. The bar is open during the day as a restaurant and a venue for watching major sporting events on the big screen.

NB - This venue has now rebranded itself as
"The Wigan Arms"

Billing itself as "altogether a great place to be", the bar has quite an extended frontage, but, as it's situated right on a road, has no outside terrace to speak of.

The interior is nice and spacious, though, with comfy seating in a British-pub style setting.

It opens at 9am and gets things underway by offering a "beat the credit crunch" breakfast. I can't give you the actual price charged for this (as it may have changed over the months) but you can be sure it'll be very cheap.

Similarly, the bar offers a meal deal during the early evening. Up to 7pm, you can avail yourself of a special menu, when you'll get huge portions for very little euro.

After this, the normal menu takes over, with food being served until 10pm.

You don't have to eat there during the day. It's also a venue for partaking of a drink and watching any number of major sporting events.

There is an enormous two-metre TV screen, plus eight others dotted about the place.

Finally, we come to the evening time. The Wigan Pier provides quality live entertainment seven nights a week, beginning at around 9:30-10pm.

The resident compere that the bar is fortunate to have is the outrageous drag act, Miss Crystal Starr.

Working for many years on the island, Miss Starr is famous in her own right. Always providing a fantastically funny show, she can be relied upon to pick on sundry members of the audience mercilessly. Indeed, customers have been known to try and get seats out of her line of sight - where they feel safer!

Crystal sings and clowns about, but also introduces two top Tenerife cabaret acts every night.

She also runs quizzes and games, such as "Play Your Cards Right".

After the live entertainment, there is karaoke to round off the evening and the bar finally calls last orders at around 2am.

To find the Wigan Pier Starco, you need, of course, to get yourself to that famous complex of bars and clubs (just opposite the Veronicas strip). Turn down the left side of Starco, past Lineker's Bar. Just further on, you'll come to the venue, on your right.