After 35 years serving up fish and chips in Brockley, Kyri is taking the plunge with a second shop, balancing expansion, rising fish prices and customer retention
I was surprised to be approached to write this column, as I don’t consider myself an expert. But then again, when you’ve been doing something for 35 years, I suppose, absolutely, you learn a lot!
The big news for us is that we’ll be opening another shop in Balham, south west London. Balham is just outside our delivery area from Brockley, and we’ve been looking for somewhere with a similar vibe – diverse, family-orientated, the kind of community where fish and chips is still very much a family treat. This site came up, it’s already a fish shop, and I thought if we add deliveries alongside Brockley’s Rock fish and chips, hopefully we could do even better there.
So why now? Honestly, it’s down to the customers. We get so many people coming from outside our area who say, “Why don’t you open near us? It would be nice to have you closer.” It feels like the right time to expand, even if running two shops with two teams of staff is going to be a challenge. Luckily, we’ve got some great chefs already, and the plan is to share some of our existing team and add new members too. I’m looking forward to it. The aim is to have it open by the end of the year as a takeaway.
Of course, fish prices aren’t looking great at the moment. From what our fishermen are saying, it looks like that’s going to carry on for at least another year. We’ve already had to increase prices, but I don’t think there’ll be another rise in the near future. Trade dipped a bit in May and June, but since July we’ve been back where we should be – busy, with deliveries up on last year too.
One customer who I hadn’t seen in the shop for a while told me recently that he doesn’t come in on Fridays anymore because instead of waiting here for 20 minutes, he’d rather be at home with the kids and have his food delivered. And I suppose that makes sense. We’ve also noticed more people ordering the smaller fish and chips – what we call our kids’ portion, though it’s actually a decent size. At £7.95, it’s a six-ounce fish with around eight ounces of chips, so it works as a main meal for plenty of people.
We’ve just had our latest MSC audit. We’ve been MSC certified since 2004, and more and more customers are asking about the blue tick. They want to know where their fish is coming from, and we’re proud to be able to say it’s from the Barents Sea, caught by a certified boat and supplier, with full traceability. It’s surprised me how much awareness there is now, but I think supermarkets have really pushed that. It’s worth having, and we’ve always been proud of that certification.
We’ve also been running promotions with our delivery partners to retain new customers. The good news is that we keep around 95–96% of them once they’ve tried us. Recently, we did a “£7 off seven brands” deal with Deliveroo that worked really well, and we’ve got a meeting with Uber Eats about another promotion this Friday.
So yes, plenty going on. Between Balham, promotions, keeping customers happy, and making sure we’re buying responsibly, there’s always something to do. But I like it that way.
