South Tyneside's chippies ready for National Fish and Chip Day

Shields Gazette reporter Holly Allton speaks to some of Shields' fish and chip businesses as National Fish and Chip Day arrives on June 5.

Transcript

00:00We're busy all the time but obviously National Fish and Chip Shop Day is a boost to business,

00:05makes everybody aware of what a fantastic meal fish and chips are.

00:10On Thursday June the 6th we are celebrating National Fish and Chip Shop Day. As part of

00:15the celebrations we have been chatting to the top fish and chip shops in South Shields to find out

00:21how they are preparing their best-selling menu items and a little history about themselves.

00:26We opened around 12 years ago, 12-13 years ago but we've been very very blessed because

00:31that interchange wasn't there before and that came in. Fish and chips were always popular here

00:38but I think now it brings quite a lot of trade in, especially we are well known in all senior

00:44citizens and it's a very, you know, very, I think, reasonable priced meal for them.

00:53We were established in 1926, we're coming up to our centenary

00:58and we are a fifth generation business. We're continually striving to get better.

01:02Well we've owned the Blue Marlin for I think 18-19 years now, so it used to belong to Billy

01:08Smith who owned Smith's Chippy on Ocean Road and then we bought it, I think it was 2005.

01:13I think it's since, I think it's now, it's on Google and everything, on our ratio it's gone

01:21five stars. We're getting quite a lot of booking for tomorrow and end of the week as well, so

01:27mostly it was just the local people before but now the area, like a local authority and they're

01:32getting involved as well, so they can launch lunchtime for their staff, so we're getting

01:36quite a lot of bookings but mostly because it's lunchtime they get very few, like a half an hour

01:42or something, so we get most of all collection. So we've got quite a lot of booking for tomorrow

01:47lunchtime, so it could be down to the Fish and Chips week or something, but I think it's just

01:54people not known about it, you know, it has to be, now it's people slowly, slowly getting

01:59known about this Fish and Chips, you know, day or something nobody knew before, but now it's,

02:06which is very, very good. Well we do get really busy on bank holidays, weekends as long as the

02:12weather's, the sun's shining because we obviously are very weather dependent. All three six weeks

02:16holidays we're busy because we have lots of families that come down and, you know, lots of

02:20mother and toddler groups and things like that. Yeah, so we are quite busy over the summer period

02:24and very quiet in the winter unfortunately, so it's a seasonal business but we are very busy

02:28when the sun shines. I think Fish and Chips has got to be a good one, we do a half Fish and Chips

02:32or a full portion for an adult, but yeah we do a varied menu, we do lots of sandwiches and salads

02:38in the summer, yeah lots of kids meals, nice chicken nuggets, proper chicken fillet bites we do,

02:44so yeah we've got quite a varied menu but Fish and Chips has got to be the favourite I would say.

02:48It's senior citizen Fish and Chips, so what do you get? So you get in small Fish and Chips

02:54and it's including free cup of tea, free bread and butter, free mushy peas and one-to-one five-star

03:02service, yes. Still Fish and Chips, still number one after all these years, it's still as popular

03:11as ever, if not more popular. People know what they're getting, they're getting a value meal,

03:17they know exactly what's in it and they love it. We've always stuck to the traditional Fish and

03:22Chips, we've never ventured into kebabs and pizzas and stuff like that, we've always stayed traditional

03:29and that's we always will stay traditional. Fish and Chips forever.