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Fish and chip shop closes after 123 years

BBC Sharon Farrell, who has blond hair and glasses and is wearing a black apron and grey t-shirt, is side by side with Tony Farrell with one arm round each other's backs. Mr Farrell is wearing a grey t-shirt and black baseball cap. Both are standing in front of the fryers in their fish and chip shop The Dolphin in Fleetwood. BBC
Sharon and Tony Farrell have had the Dolphin Chippy for 15 years

The owners of a seaside fish and chip shop which is closing after 123 years have described their last day as "emotional".

Tony and Sharon Farrell took over the Dolphin Chippy in Fleetwood, Lancashire, 15 years ago.

Mr Farrell said they had decided to call it a day because of the "ever-increasing food and energy costs" and reduced footfall since the Covid pandemic.

"We've tried to sell for a few years but, with the current climate, no one wants to buy a fish and chip shop," he said.

Mr Farrell told BBC Radio Lancashire he had cried as he turned off the fryers for the last time at the chippy on Blakiston Street, which had been going since 1901.

He said their final customer had been a regular who he had nicknamed Captain Fishcakes.

"It seems fitting our last customer was one of [the first], if not our first, customers, Kris Butler, buying jumbo chips and gravy in honour of his grandad who introduced him to the Dolphin in 1998," he said.

External view of Dolphin Chippy which has a black sign and yellow walls and white windows and door and sits on the corner of Blakiston Street. There is a black and white A-board sign outside saying Chippy Open.
There has been a fish and chip shop on the corner of Blakiston Street, Fleetwood, since 1901

The 45-year-old thanked his customers, staff and "the good people of Fleetwood", saying he had "made many friends over the years".

He said he had not wanted to be the one who ended the shop's 123-year run.

"But, if it isn't a viable business, what can you do?" he said.

Mr Farrell said he was determined the Dolphin would not be forgotten and asked customers to write their memories of the fish and chip shop and post them through the letterbox before New Year's Day.

He would then put them in a time capsule and hide it in a wall in the building with a letter "explaining the history of Fleetwood's oldest chippy", along with menus and newspaper cuttings, he said.

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