The popular Mosgiel fast-food shop is closing later this month, but the co-owner joked that working in the greasy environment for so long had been good for her skin.
"I have my kids on — I tell them, ‘look, I don’t use any creams on my face’, as I stand there with this big smear of grease down my face.
"There may be something in it though.
"People keep saying I don’t look old enough to retire."
She and her husband Warren bought the business in March 1986, but sadly, they said the high-temperature workload was starting to chip away at their bodies.
"We’re here seven days a week.
"We start at 8.15 every morning and we don’t leave until 11.30 at night.
"I think our bodies are starting to feel it.
"People don’t realise how much we are tied to the business.
"In all our time here, we’ve only ever closed about a dozen times.
"People invite us out for meals or weddings, and we’re like, ‘we can’t go because we’ve got work’.
"Our customers are so loyal to us, so we feel obligated to be here."
"That’s happened now.
"We’ve put our three kids through their studies and they’re all in really good jobs."
She said they were trying to slip away quietly, but once customers got wind of their departure, it became impossible to keep it under the newspaper wraps.
Despite making fish and chips for such a long time, the duo said they still loved eating them.
"When we go on holidays, we eat other shop’s fish and chips and we compare them to ours.
"I still reckon nothing beats our chips.
"One thing I won’t miss is the smell of the deep fat fryers.
"It clings to you, especially when you work with the woks."
She said they would miss their customers and staff the most.
"They’ve become like family.
"It’s going to be a big change for us, not seeing everyone all the time.
"But we’ll have so much spare time to do what we want to do" — like go out for fish and chips, she said.
