A fish and chip shop owner in Leeds has complained about the standard and availability of staff to work at the takeaway.
The owner of Kirby’s of Meanwood, Andy Crombleholme, aged 36, loves branding and marketing and has developed an app for the Stonegate Road chippy, which has entered its centenary year of business.
But, it’s hard to find the staff who will take the job as seriously as Andy does. He is precise with everything in his business, including the exact formula for his batter, which he describes as “light, thin and crispy”.
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Andy, from Otley, said: “We currently have seven members of staff, that’s the trickiest thing at the moment. We just can’t get staff. It’s so hard recruiting them.
"We’ve been trying to recruit a couple more members of staff for about two or three months now and we’ve been finding it very difficult.
“You don’t get many applying. The ones that do come, we lose quite quickly for various reasons. I have got high standards, I’m not going to lie, I am quite picky about things. It’s my business and I expect things to be done the right way. It’s my life.
“I want my staff to love the job as much as I do. If they don’t then it becomes hard for them because they’re not hitting the standards that I want and will only accept.”
'People want big brands'
The 36-year-old took over Kirby’s in March 2020, just before the UK’s first lockdown in response to the pandemic.
Andy took the time during the pandemic closures to renovate the shop with a snazzy rebrand and build an online app.
Andy said it’s not good enough to just be a traditional local chip shop any longer. As times change, chip shops have to strive to ride the wave of development and compete.
He said: “You’ve got to be better than that. People now expect us to be similar to your big brands, your big chains. People want that now. They want the great quality in the right packaging and the great customer service.”
Fish and chips in newspaper will no longer do. Andy is attempting to turn his chippy into a “recognised brand” which spans further than Meanwood.
The rebrand included an updated name, ‘Kirby’s’ changed to ‘Kirby’s of Meanwood’, plus there was sleek new signage outside.
“It was scary and challenging,” admitted Andy, who’s been in the fish and chip trade for 21 years. He first worked at a chippy when he was 15 and bought his first shop in Wortley when he was 23.
He continued: “We didn’t know when we would be able to reopen, how I was going to keep staff happy, how everyone would afford to live. It was scary times for us all.
“But we came through it. I’m not just one to sit about and rest on my laurels. You’ve got to push forward, I’m a grafter and I’ll put my hand to anything.
“The day we closed, I rang people to design my website and pressed the button. I said let’s do it, let’s go for it.”
After reopening, Andy’s brother, a joiner, even made a nifty little corner office where he could oversee and run the business. This is where he watches the CCTV, calls business contacts, oversees orders and lets staff do their online food hygiene courses.
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“I never switch off,” said Andy, who loves the convenience of being able to run the business at the shop rather than making orders over the phone beside the fryers, as would have happened in the past.
Although, the traditional community atmosphere hasn’t disappeared.
“We’ve become stronger,” Andy declared. “We’ve got customers whose family have been coming to Kirby’s forever. It’s got a nice community feel to it.”
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