A fish and chip shop in Swansea has shut after just nine months of trading due to the "spiralling cost of ingredients and energy" in the cost-of-living crisis. Fish Cakes & Ale opened in Newtown Road in Mumbles in April this year, selling premium quality fish, fish cakes and chips next to the promenade.
It was an expansion of Cakes & Ale, a well-known café bar just a short distance away, which opened in August 2019. However, just weeks after the new Fish Cakes & Ale launched, the owner announced Cakes & Ale was closing in May this year - citing a difficult past two years with the pandemic and rising costs..
Now Fish Cakes & Ale has suffered the same demise as its predecessor. In a post to social media on Tuesday, the owner announced the closure and said it had been an "extremely difficult decision". Speaking to WalesOnline, the shop's manager, Doug Dawson - who had also been the manager of Cakes & Ale - said the last couple of years had been "pretty rough" for the business. "This year in particular has been quite difficult," he said. You can get more Swansea news and other story updates straight to your inbox by subscribing to our newsletters here.
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The 38-year-old said the costs of running the business had "gone through the roof" - and had been exacerbated by the war in Ukraine and Brexit. "The biggest increase has been the energy prices - they are over five times more expensive now than they were when we opened," he said.
He explained that gas and electricity were integral to the running of the shop, which has six deep fat fryers, a rumbler (peels potatoes), an oven, a chipper, fridges, and freezers. "Those costs were always going to be a large expenditure, but you can't times those costs by five and expect to be able to swallow that."
He said they were paying 70% more for their fish than when they started, with Russia being a major supplier of cod. Meanwhile the price of vegetable oil - of which Ukraine is one of the biggest exporters in the world - had also gone up by three times in the last year. "We hold about 140L of vegetable oil in our equipment for it to be turned on," Mr Dawson said.
"I speak to our suppliers on a regular basis - everyone is feeling the pinch. The problem that we have is that we haven't been here that long - nine months is not a long time to establish yourself and to build up that regular clientele.
"It's not just our costs that have been going through the roof - it's the consumer's costs as well...and the media is making everybody terrified - quite rightly so, because it is a scary time. But everybody is being told to save your pennies, your costs are going to go up, and so the first thing that goes for a lot of people is maybe that trip down to the fish and chip shop."
The closure will see Mr Dawson lose his job, as well as another permanent full-time member of staff, one permanent part-time member, and seven or eight teenagers who do one or two shifts a week. Mr Dawson said he and other workers had been aware the business was struggling.
"This doesn't come as a shock to us. We've been trying our hardest to make it work. It's just sad. We've worked really, really hard to try and establish it. There is a lot of stuff that goes on in the background of a business like this that customers don't see - half six in the morning making chips.
"We're grateful to the people that have supported us, and sorry to the people that will miss us. We've tried really hard and it's very difficult in this situation when you know that you've put everything into it and there's still not much more that we could have done - not with the costs just to turn the place on."
With the restaurant having closed with immediate effect, Mr Dawson said he was taking all leftover food to Matt's Cafe, a venue in Uplands which redistributes food that would otherwise be wasted to those in need.
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