You've had your chips in Leeds

[Biff]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-15949876

Went there once. Top quality but a bit pricey.

[tiermat]

Once they started to sell "The Brand" it was only going to go one way, rapidly I thought, but ~10 years is a good crack at keeping it going.

Not surpirsed, but a little upset at the potential of what used to be, not what is now.  FWIW the chippy in Headingley was way way better (to my mind anyway), different company, smaller premises, but much better than HR.

[Cudzoziemiec]

What was special about them anyway? I've never been in one, but I remember walking past the one in Bath and thinking it looked like a large cafeteria, similar to the coffeeshop in M&S over the road - both full of old ladies on coach parties, too. Not a chippy, for sure. And I bet they didn't wrap them in newspaper!

[Gareth Rees]

FWIW the chippy in Headingley was way way better (to my mind anyway), different company, smaller premises, but much better than HR.

It's still there!

[Psychler]

Harry Ramsden are to close their shop in Guiseley as it's not making enough money. 

Capitalist bastards!

[Frere]

Isn't Giusley where Harry Ramsdens started?

Frere

[Psychler]

Yes, the original shop

Opened in 1928

[Wowbagger]

I had some fish & chips there once. It wasn't up to much. There are much better chippies in Southend.

[Pancho]

Harry Ramsden are to close their shop in Guiseley as it's not making enough money. 

Capitalist bastards!

Well, if was government owned and run by govt employees, they'd all be on strike, anyway!

[Frere]

Nah, classic case of an asset being stripped down and devalued. The chain has been traded so many times that it doesn't mean anything anymore and is currently owned by this Birmigham outfit, Boparan Vultures ventures.

http://www.birminghampost.net/birmingham-business/richlist/profiles2011/2011/01/23/30-35-ranjit-baljinder-boparan-singh-190million-125m-65233-28032123/

Frere

[clarion]

I had some fish & chips there once. It wasn't up to much. There are much better chippies in Southend.

Absolute tosh.  But there are better chippies in North Leeds.

It's very sad that Ramsden's is to close.  End of an era, if that hadn't already happened when they started pushing that microwaved bastardisation of their product in service stations.

[Regulator]

I had some fish & chips there once. It wasn't up to much. There are much better chippies in Southend.

I have to agree.  I thought the quality was very poor and they were over-priced.  I also found the staff really surly.

There are some good chippies in Southend (there are also some dire tourist trap ones as well) but the best F&C I've ever had in the UK came from the Mr Chippy, on the London Road in West Thurrock.  'Tis a pity it's not open when the FNRttC goes past...

[Mr Larrington]

Hurry fish here, hurry fish here
Fishy fishy, Harry Ramsden

Taxi!

[Adam]

Harry Ramsden are to close their shop in Guiseley as it's not making enough money. 

Capitalist bastards!

Surely it's the fault of Mr Ramsden himself, selling up in 1954?  It's been sold seven times since.

[clarion]

FWIW the chippy in Headingley was way way better (to my mind anyway), different company, smaller premises, but much better than HR.

It's still there!

Bryan's is better than Ramsden's, no doubt about it.  They went through a rocky patch financially, but I think they're OK now.

[Hot Flatus]

Terribly unhealthy, but you can't beat a decent Yorkshire chippy with a dining area, bread and butter and a pot of tea.

Very refined.

I like the one by Hollingsworth Lake.

[clarion]

That's a Lancashire one.  And I don't rate it.  But there's another in Walsden (arguably Lancashire too) called Ma Pollards, which is brilliant, and they have tables out back by the cut (and a bus you can sit in).

Todmorden also has the Tudor Chippy, and Hebden Bridge AJ's.

Skipton has Busy Lizzie's, and Eastwoods - contrasting styles, and both very good in their way.

Of course, Whitby has the best chippy in the country.

[Biggsy]

What was special about them anyway?

I was going to say dripping, but then I saw they switched to vegetable oil: nothing special.

[bobb]

I had some fish & chips there once. It wasn't up to much. There are much better chippies in Southend.

Absolute tosh.  But there are better chippies in North Leeds.

Why? You can't have been to every chippy in Southend. Oh wait! You don't have to, do you?! It's in the south! It isn't possible to get anything like decent fish and chips anywhere other than the sodding north is it?

Tiresome, predictable, northern, jingoistic bullshit 

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

I think Clarion meant that Wowbagger's remarks about the quality of Harry Ramsden's chips was tosh, rather than the bit about the chippies in Southend.

[clarion]

Absolutely, although the worst chippy I've ever been to was either one in Brixton, or the one I visited in Westcliff-on-Sea.  Having been brought up to learn that seaside chippies are better, I was looking forward to the lovely fresh fish I could get there.  I was served up the most appallingly slimy, stinky bit of unidentifiable half-cooked sealife in soggy batter it has ever been my misfortune to encounter.  As for the chips...

[delthebike]

or the one I visited in Westcliff-on-Sea.

On the seafront? Should've asked me and I'd have sent you to Oldham's (northern by name only  ).

[clarion]

Many years before I knew you or any flatlanders at all.  It wasn't quite on the seafront, but on a street just away from it.  Can't have been far from the Cliffs Pavilion, which is where I was being interviewed.

[mrcharly-YHT]

I had some fish & chips there once. It wasn't up to much. There are much better chippies in Southend.

Absolute tosh.  But there are better chippies in North Leeds.

Why? You can't have been to every chippy in Southend. Oh wait! You don't have to, do you?! It's in the south! It isn't possible to get anything like decent fish and chips anywhere other than the sodding north is it?

Tiresome, predictable, northern, jingoistic bullshit 

I think bobb has a chip(py) on the shoulder

[bobb]

Very good