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