The
History of Mr Chips
Long gone are the days when fish and chips were cooked
in coal fired-fryers and wrapped in newspaper!
The
present proprietor of Mr Chips is John Hagan assisted
by his sister, Catherine Ashwood, who took the business
over from their father Patrick in 1990.
But
the earliest record of a fish and chip shop on this
site in Aswell Street, Louth, is in 1906, and the Hagan
family's connections with fish and chips go back nearly
as far!
Daniel
Hagan, a fisherman on the south coast, came to fish
out of Grimsby in 1850 and his son son, also Daniel
Hagan, purchased this restaurant in 1920.
Daniel
junior's son, Patrick, bought the business from his
father in 1947 for a staggering £500. At that
time fish, chips and peas, tea, bread and butter in
the restaurant would have cost 1/7d - approximately
8 new pence! Waitresses' wages were 1/7d per hour.
So
John took over the business that his grandfather had
started seventy years early and so successive generations
of the Hagan family have served successive generations
of customers. This is the secret of Mr Chips …a
high-volume business in a small Wolds Market town…it
is the family involvement that is such a vital ingredient
of their success.
