Homesick Poms flock to Birkdale’s Chumley Warner’s fish and chip shop to mark Queen's death

The Queen’s death has stirred a rush on British comfort food with one southside fish and chippy, modelled on the UK’s famous Harry Ramsden’s, totalling its busiest night ever.

The Queen’s death has stirred a rush on British comfort food with one southside fish and chippy, modelled on the UK’s famous Harry Ramsden’s, totalling its busiest night ever.

Birkdale’s Chumley Warner’s Fish and Chips owner Louise Warner said the store served more than 400 meals on Friday night as homesick Poms flocked to the venue to pick up a serve of battered Atlantic cod with curry sauce and mushy peas or even a chip buttie.

Ms Warner said expats travelled from Toowoomba, Tweed, Ipswich and the Sunshine Coast after the news.

“The number of orders and people coming to the shop caught us a bit by surprise,” she said.

“We knew people were mourning but never expected the shop to be a focal point for UK expats.

“Those who came here on Friday night said they had been up all night on Thursday after getting an inkling that there was something happening at the palace.

“They first heard of some news from Balmoral at about 9pm and wanted to stay up all night to see how the Queen was when it was announced her family was joining her.

“Walking into this store really is like walking back into a British high street and that’s exactly what people wanted along with some typical British comfort food.

“We even had a couple fly from Sydney for lunch just to have their favourite British traditional meal and then fly back again in the afternoon.”

UK expats flocks the Birkdale store after the news on Friday.

Ms Warner said staff turned on the radio in the store on Friday morning to listen to BBC 2 as the sheer magnitude of the monarch’s death resonated across the world.

Online orders lit up as people stayed in to watch the coverage and share food which made them feel connected to the UK and closer to family and friends back there.

Ex-pat James McKenzie, who moved to Australia in 1980 and now lives at Manly, said he decided to have fish and chips and go to Chumley’s after hearing the news of the Queen’s death on Friday.

“I am now a fully fledged Aussie but it did make me reminisce about my younger days after leaving university in Bournemouth and I felt like fish and chips,” he said.

“I must admit the British do make the best chip butties and black pudding and I have not had a scotch egg since I came to Australia.

“Chumley’s was the only place I could really think of going to.”

The popular UK-styled outlet opened in Birkdale in 2009 selling a range of British foods, sweets, and fish and chips.

All the frying equipment in the store is imported from the UK along with the same oils, and fish and batters.

Fish and chips is very symbolic of the UK with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in 1940 declaring fish and chips as the national dish which helped the British defeat Nazism.

Churchill deemed the meal so valuable to national morale it was the only food never rationed during World War II.