At her home in Atlanta, Georgia, Chantelle Wright was relaxing in the hot tub with her husband when she made a business decision that would change the direction of her life.
Her business plan was fueled by a desire to introduce Americans to the great British tradition of fish and chips. On her frequent travels around the United States – to Charleston, South Carolina, even New York City – she says she was “always disappointed” by the battered cod and fries on the menu.
“We were in the hot tub one day,” Wright told IntraFish, “and I said: ‘Sod it! I’m going to open a chippy!”
On July 3, 2020 – in the middle of the COVID pandemic – Wright opened her British-style fish and chip restaurant in Cumming, Georgia. She claims boldly to be “the only authentic chippy” in the whole of the United States.
“We had queues out the door,” she said this week at the UK National Fish and Chip Awards in London, where her company – Wright’s Fish and Chips – won the inaugural award in the overseas category.
In recent years, the UK’s approximately 10,000 fish and chip shops have experienced some of the most difficult times in their 160-year history, hit by soaring prices for raw materials and a prohibitive tariff on imports of Russian-caught whitefish. A minimum wage increase for UK workers will add to costs this year.
Though battered cod and fries are, of course, widely available throughout North America, connoisseurs say that US consumers have yet to embrace the traditional British version of the dish, which dates back to around 1860 and grew rapidly in popularity among factory and mill workers.
Fish and chip shops typically use around 30 percent of all whitefish sold in the UK, and the industry generates annual turnover of around £1.2 billion ($1.5 billion/€1.4 billion), according to the National Federation of Fish Friers (NFFF).
A great British export
Wright, who grew up in the Welsh city of Newport, is far from the first entrepreneur to export fish and chips to the United States.
In 2013, Joe Gorrie, a Scot, founded The Wee Chippy in Venice Beach, California. Its franchise system signed a 30-unit deal last year with The Tastebuds Group to open shops in locations across Texas, Florida, Colorado and Tennessee, according to the company’s website.
NFFF President Andrew Crook, a regular visitor to the United States, said he believes the US market has strong potential for entrepreneurs keen to export the culture of British fish and chips.
“America has got a big quick-service restaurant culture, an eat-out culture – and people do love British things,” Crook said. “Fish and chips are a great British export. I’m certain it will be explored in the US at some point – I’ve no doubts about that – because people like it.”
Crook said this was part of a wider trend that he is witnessing in international markets; at this week’s award ceremony, Wright’s Fish and Chips beat competitors from Iceland and Vietnam.
“It’s getting easier for fish and chip shops to open abroad because they can get the supplies,” he told IntraFish. “Tourists always comment on the fish and chip signs outside pubs, so they’ve had fish and chips here and they want it back home. It’s not just expats abroad.
“We’ve had a lot of Polish people who’ve worked over here [in the UK] and gone back – and they take fish and chips with them.”
‘My own secret recipe’
Wright left the UK in 2015 when her husband, Paul, who works for a major international hotel chain, was posted to Malta.
“There was only one fish and chip shop on the island [where we lived],” she said. “I would make him drive there – and then it closed!”
A few years later, when Paul was posted to Atlanta, Chantelle and their two sons moved again. The younger son, Kelzey, is also involved in running the business, which can sit 50 people inside and a further 100 outdoors.
Wright sources her cod from Norway and potatoes from domestic US suppliers, while other ingredients – batter, gravy, curry sauce and mushy peas – are either imported from the UK or made on site.
“We make our own tartare sauce -- my own secret recipe,” she said.
Wright said the restaurant recently started to sell alcohol, including Guinness and London Pride ale, and that she had plans to open a traditional pub serving fish and chips. Though she is not yet ready to consider a franchise arrangement, she is considering expanding to other locations.
“I’m not sure where,” she added. “I might go chasing the sun and the beaches.”
