Yorkshire great and small TV Appearance

Did you catch us last week on the tele box? 📺

We were so excited to show off our skills and talk about all things fish, chips and cheese! 🧀
We are so grateful to the fabulous Daisybeck studios for giving us the chance to work with Dan and Helen. They were so kind and made sure we weren’t too nervous in front of the camera.

We were showing of our deep fried cheese….
We take a good chunk of the cheese, we batter it and pop it in the fryer to create a crispy on the outside, melt in the middle cheese bomb! Come and see us at the van to get a piece for yourself!

Follow the link to watch a little snippet 🧀🎥

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DA-tBCxM-ZP/?igsh=OTJmcHAzd3J4aWZj

Outdoor Catering

Are you planning an event that you need catering for? Contact us for a quote and get your favorite chippie on wheels at your event.

Please note that we only serve within the north Yorkshire dales and our prices are best for events with 100 guests or more, although we are happy to price on less. Please find our outdoor request forms attached below, simply fill it in and email it to us on info@ramsaysfishandchips.co.uk.

Outdoor-Catering-Request-Form-2023 editable

Outdoor-Catering-Request-Form-June-2023.pdf

March 100 miles for mind

During the month of March, Jennifer has taken on a challenge to walk 100 miles throughout the month for the mental health charity ‘mind’ It works out at roughly 3.2 miles each day or 7300 steps a day. Obviously not many steps can be done in the van so most the walking is done on her lunch breaks with her 9 month old Labrador, Asti. To follow her progress you can visit the Facebook page dedicated to it by following this link: https://www.facebook.com/donate/703623974340897/?fundraiser_source=external_url

Our Holiday

We booked our holiday back in 2019 before covid was even known about, we, like many others, were due to go in November 2020 but this was obviously cancelled and rescheduled for October 2021. This time we cancelled, thinking that there would be no chance we would be able to go. So third time lucky, we finally managed to get away for a fabulous 10 day break in sunny Cape Verde 🇨🇻. We did manage to write our car off on the way to the airport – but other than that small detail 🙈 we had a blissful time. 10 days spent laughing, splashing in the sea and wining and dining to our hearts content. The best part was not having to smell like chip fat for 10 whole days!

But we are definitely back to reality now and ready for a busy season in the dales. Going on holiday is fantastic but there really is nowhere like home.

Working with your Partner

How do you work with your partner?

A question we asked ourselves several times a day when we were in talks about accepting the job offer. Before this job, we both worked odd hours and hardly ever saw each other, so we knew that working together each day then going home together could be problematic. Luckily things have worked quite well so far….. the truth is on the whole when we are at work we don’t have time to think about the fact we are husband and wife or what we were last arguing about, we have to be on the ball and thinking about mushy peas or luncheon meat fritters. On occasion in quieter times we have imagined dunking the others head in the fryer, but generally speaking we get on well……for now.

Haddock

In the 8 weeks that we were closed due to Covid-19 we have taken the time to discuss ways to make the service we provide better and more efficient. There was one topic that we kept revisiting, this was our Haddock, a fish that historically has been a lot more expensive than Cod but is now more affordable.
A few months ago, we made the decision to trial our haddock with no skin as we had lots of our lovely customers asking for this and this saw a rise in sales.
On the reopening of our suppliers, Collins Seafood, we enquired about the source and sustainability of our haddock and how we could lock into a premium supply in these uncertain times. We were delighted to learn that they had just bought a large quantity from the British owned Kirkella ship, Dick Ramsay always recommended the Kirkella as they provide some of the finest Haddock you can buy.
We love the fact its a British owned and run ship operating out of Hull. The sustainability of our products is very close to our hearts and we know they fish a sustainable fishery so we had little hesitation in saying “yes please” when offered the chance to buy a large proportion of the stock Collins hold.
We will continue to monitor the sustainability of all our products particularly when considering any menu changes or updates. For those of you interested in fish sustainability take a look at https://www.mcsuk.org/
We have made the decision that as of 15th June this will be our go to fish if you ask for Fish and Chips. For those of you who really prefer Cod, rest assured it is equally sustainable and premium quality and is still very much be available but we ask that you clarify which fish you would like when ordering if you have a strong preference.
Why not give our haddock a try next time you order and see what you think?

Back to work

On May 11th 2020, lockdown measures were slightly lessened and our suppliers reopened meaning that after 8 weeks off the van we were finally able to get back on board and start frying again. We had been missing seeing the faces of our regular customers and driving through the stunning views of the Dales so much.

It took us one week to get everything we needed in order for our reopening. We needed stock delivering, spreadsheets made for the pre orders, phones set up, and most importantly a big clean down of the van and prep room.

Our new day looks a bit like this:

Adele cleans the van and prep area for a couple couple of hours first thing.

Eddie then goes onto our prep room, rumbles and chips the potatoes, and pin bones the fish before returning home for some lunch. He then returns to work one hour before we need to leave base and loads up the van ready for our first stop.

Jennifer stays at home taking pre order phone calls between 9am-3pm before Eddie picks her up on route to the first stop.

It’s taking a lot of getting used to and sorting out the finer points of trying to balance the villages and amount of time we need per village. This has meant we have had to miss some usual villages too. We are hoping that this ‘new normal’ has been easy to adjust to for you guys and that we can continue to serve you delicious fish and chips as safely as possible.

As I am sure you are all aware, we are re opening our fish and chip van as of Tuesday 19th May 2020, this came after the government announcement on Sunday 10th May and resulting in our suppliers re opening. We have been hard at work putting into place systems to ensure the safety of both ourselves and our customers upon re opening. We have had to make the hard decision to take some further out villages off our rounds in order to ensure that we stay within a more local area and can abide by social distancing more effectively.  This has also meant a bit of a re shuffle in days and times for some villages in order to make this work. Below I have added the new routes and times for the foreseeable future, please check them out.

we are having to operate a strict no walk up policy in this time to limit the amount of people in the queue at one time, therefore if you are wanting  fish and chips you must pre order them by calling us on 07943054838 Tuesday – Friday between 9am – 3pm. orders must be in by 3pm on the day of collection to ensure we have the stock on the van. text messages and Facebook messages are not always monitored and therefore we ask that you don’t use these to place your order in case it gets missed.

One year ago….

One year ago we picked the chip van up from Dick and Pauline! Thursday will mark one year since our first voyage in the van! An awful lot has happened since then, and we certainly didn’t expect to be writing this post whilst the world is facing a global pandemic.
We wanted to express our thanks for everyone that has supported us in the last 12 months. We have a lot of wonderful supportive customers who have stuck with us whilst we learned the ropes and for that we are forever grateful.
Many of you only see the faces of Jennifer and Eddie on the van, but there really is a team behind the scenes too, from office work to cleaners to holiday cover we would be lost with out them.
We can’t wait to see you all again under better circumstances. Please stay safe and look after one another

Here is a time lapse video of us serving in Newton-le-Willows one evening – In case you wondered what it looked like inside the van

[arve url=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/vzUcVwOfGsc”  /]

Isolation 3

Day 9353838, by some miracle we are still married 😜
My blood stream is now 40% tea and 60% Gin, I no longer have a sleeping pattern and it seems without being able to visit the hairdresser I am actually going very grey. On the positive side We have got some pansy and primrose seeds growing to put into pots at the front of the house to brighten the place up a little – a bit of a novice in this area so any suggestions for easy to grow plants are more than welcome!
Eddie has nearly finished power washing the driveway and continues to help with deliveries from our wonderful village shop Sykes House, whilst I have been doing a spot of redecorating and trying new recipes with local produce.
Our cats are growing increasingly concerned about the amount of time we are at home, they sleep under the table judging us every time we make a noise during their 20hr long naps. We are still very much enjoying making use of the outdoor space and preying that the sunshine returns soon ☀️.
We have been taking part in a FaceTime quiz with friends and family for the last week or two in the hope we learn a little in our time off. We both succumbed to watching Tiger King on Netflix and we have also downloaded the TikTok app – it seems to be what everyone in isolation has done, so we had to see what the fuss was all about.
We hope you are all keeping well and being safe ❤️