Whitby fish and chips: Yorkshire fish fryer family own businesses in coastal town with collective history of over 200 years and ties to Bram Stoker’s Dracula
The Fusco family have been serving fish and chips in Whitby for three generations and over the years they have run three thriving businesses that have a collective history of more than 200 years.
Violet Fusco and her husband Dennis rented their first fish and chip shop in 1956 from the owner who retired and named it Fusco’s Fish and Chips.
It grew in popularity over the years, they then moved to Whitby 12 years later and bought the Royal Fisheries.
The business was taken over by their son Peter and his wife Carol in 1979 who were busy running the business and raising their family with three sons and a daughter.
Years later when Peter’s oldest son, Stuart, graduated from the University of York, he became hands-on with the business and its expansion led to the purchase of a second building, Quayside, on Pier Road in 1999.
Since then, the Fusco family has bought another shop called Fish Box, which has been serving as a fish and chip shop for 130 years.
“We’re the third generation of fish fryers in the business,” Stuart said.
“I came out of university back and I decided to come into the business as well but there was no work for me.
“That’s when we decided to buy Quayside which is down in the pier in Whitby. After that our shop got more popular and busier, so we took on Fish Box which came up for sale.
“It was a natural progression.”
Quayside used to be the town library where Bram Stoker wrote Dracula.
“It’s quite an old building, it’s an old public bathhouse as well because people didn’t used to have baths,” Mr Fusco said.
“So they used to go to the public bathhouse where you could pay for a salt water bath or a fresh water bath and hot or cold depending on how much money you had.
“It was one of the first municipal buildings. The building was built around the [early] 1800s.
“We’ve got a good reputation, a good name. We have regulars; every time they come to Whitby, they come to our shop.
“What also helps is that in Whitby there are quite a few good fish and chip shops and I think because everyone is so competitive, the drive pushes the standards up. It’s good for the consumer.
“We have a really big goth following; we have two goth weekends and it’s crazy the amount of people that come to them, it’s really busy.”
Mr Fusco said that Whitby’s charm and prioritising quality of the product they sell are key to keep their businesses sustainable.
“You keep moving forward with the business, you keep changing, adapting, it’s obviously different to what it was many years ago,” he said.
“The core product that you do is essentially the same; sourcing the best materials, the best fish, the best potatoes, the best flours.
“Quality products are what people buy into, we try to be sustainable in where we source our fish. I think that’s important to create the right image.
“[Whitby] holds a certain charm, it’s an oldie and not that easy to get to. It’s a natural amphitheatre; it’s in a big valley with a river going through it and out to sea.
“It’s got some good beaches and some high cliffs. You’ve got folk tales like Dracula and it’s just a nice place to come and relax.
“We get people who come in who recognise my dad, who was around from the start, there are some customers who say they knew him at school.
“Then you get second, third, fourth generations coming into the shops who we know that live locally.”