James Gibb, owner of Illuminati has re-branded the venue as Little White Horse Wine Bar.
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00:00 I've been in Illuminati now for like 10 years, it's coming up to like 10 years of Illuminati being open.
00:04 And I've seen the town change a lot and now I've kind of seen it turn in a direction which is more like early evening sort of trade.
00:14 There seems to be a lot more going on in early evening, a few venues like Cork House, The Loom, Bridge Beer House
00:21 and then recently in on the Wharf and Williams Bar, both great places.
00:26 And I can see that there's quite a lot going on and I feel like the town needs to kind of go in that direction now.
00:34 I've been working late nights here for so many years and staying open until 3, 4 in the morning,
00:40 sometimes later if you've got an event on and yeah, it takes a toll on your body staying open until that late.
00:48 And really for me now I want to take a different sort of route just for myself as well.
00:53 And something that I've got a lot of passion in is this side of it, you know, the food side.
00:59 And we're going to be offering food here, we're going to be doing, you know,
01:02 all like a more comfy sort of relaxed environment for the early evening trade and throughout the day as well.
01:10 We're going to be opening from lunchtime and try and pull people into Burnley earlier on and kind of set up a bit of a route where they can go bounce between these venues
01:19 and kind of enjoy a few glasses of wine here and then a few nibbles and then venture off somewhere else
01:26 and do the same sort of thing in other venues around town.
01:28 Yeah, I want to keep it quite relaxed and easy.
01:30 So yeah, small plates, sharing boards, kind of things that you do expect when you go to a wine bar,
01:36 things that you can enjoy with a bottle of wine.
01:38 We've got quite a few selections, I'm going to keep changing it, rotating it and yeah,
01:43 trying out a few bottles of wine ourselves and kind of gain our own knowledge and experience as well.
01:47 So it's going to be fun.
01:49 Since being at the venue, I've had a lot of, I'd say a lot of people come in and say,
01:54 "Oh, this used to be a little white horse" and they'll tell you a few tales and stories about it.
01:57 And yeah, probably not some that aren't appropriate for daytime TV, you know, but yeah, you hear a lot of stories about it.
02:09 But that kind of like what made it stick in my head as well.
02:11 And I kind of, I've always, I like the name and I like the history that Burnley's got.
02:16 It's got a lot of history and that's why we've got like old pictures on the wall of Burnley and little different things
02:21 and a lot of pictures from this street as well that you wouldn't even, you don't recognise until somebody tells you,
02:26 "Oh yeah, that's actually the street" and then it's like, "Oh yeah, start making it out then."
02:30 Like this, you know, it used to be the centre of the world, didn't it, Burnley?
02:35 And it's kind of, it's lost that sort of, it's lost a bit of that culture and kind of try and bring that back with,
02:41 you know, showing off, showcasing some of those images as well that we've got on the wall.
02:47 I wanted to get behind the bar making cocktails and worked my way up and then the opportunity came to take on the bar.
02:53 And that was something that I thought was a great decision at the time,
02:56 but didn't realise that less than six months later, COVID was around the corner and then we had to adapt.
03:02 And we started doing the takeaway, started doing takeaway cocktails.
03:05 We tried everything to keep the business, the brand going.
03:11 I think everybody's seen me try different ideas and different things.
03:15 I've tried absolutely everything with Illuminati to keep it going as long as I could.
03:19 And 10 years seems like a good time to, you know, change it up and try something different.
03:25 But obviously I'll never forget what we achieved as Illuminati over the years.
03:29 We've had some great nights and I think everybody's got some good memories.
03:33 A lot of couples come to me and say, "Yeah, we actually met in Illuminati."
03:37 And you think, "Oh, yeah." You know, it's like we were that sort of place where you'd meet your future husband or wife or something.
03:45 Just because we had a nice vibe in here, it was always good vibes.
03:47 And we're still going to keep that. We're still going to keep good vibes.
03:50 You know, it's all about keeping, you know, I want people to enjoy coming down here.
03:56 And yes, it's going to be different, but it's still going to be good, you know.