Wellington's 60s chip shop takes customers back in time

A new chip shop in Wellington is looking to take its customers back to the 60s with its beef dripping, beer batter and nostalgic decor.

Manager Richard Palin said it was set up after they heard more and more people talk about the "brown chips" of their childhood.

But while it's a treat for the older generation, younger people haven't quite adjusted to how things used to be done.

Richard said: "There was an eight-year-old boy in the other day, and he was watching us wrap our chips in newspaper.

"He was absolutely bewildered – he couldn't understand what we were doing. He must have thought we'd run out of the paper or something. I thought it was hilarious."

It took some research to find why the classic fish 'n' chips had changed so much over the last fifty years.

"I remember them myself from when I was a boy," Richard said. "We heard so many people say they wished they could get their old chips back.

"I wanted to know why they were brown and why they tasted so nice. They were cooked in beef dripping, and they used beer batter, made with brown ale. That's the recipe to good fish and chips.

"We expected to be slow when we first opened, but there's been queueing right down the street."

Inside the shop is a proper black and white television set for those eating in the shop to watch, as well as a wireless and telephone. The walls are lined with old LPs and money too.

Richard said people were looking back to a simpler time.

"I think we've lost our way," he said.

"We're relying on fast food, and a lot of that is about quantity, not quality. Nobody cooks in beef dripping anymore, except at places like Blists Hill. It's all about taking people back."