Zena and Chris Lindsay from The Friary in Stockport purchased a Florigo Island range in March 2021. They wanted to update the shop they purchased in 2019 and thought the Covid-19 pandemic proved to be the best opportunity to do this.
We sat down with Zena to find out about their story and why they choose Florigo.
It’s a long story really. My Dad had been in the business for over 26 years. Me and my brother weren’t that interested in the industry at the time, but wanted to open up a café or something so we could share our love of cooking and turn it into something great. The fish and chip shop really wasn’t the main focus, but we saw the shop our Dad sold in 1992 come up for sale. We went to have a look, fell in love with the place and bought it in 2019.
I love the customers and giving them the best quality food I possibly can. As we are based on the high street, we are easily accessible and have a very loyal customer base. I love cooking, it’s nice feeding and meeting people, especially when you get some great comments from customers. We are lucky enough to have some of the best staff we could wish for.
The range in the shop when we bought it wasn’t up to scratch. It was a 20 year old British range, it couldn’t keep up with demand and was starting to cost us more and more to run. We spoke to Robert at Florigo who came up with great ideas and took it from there.
We went on the NFFF training course and used a Florigo there, so knew how efficient and easy it was to fry off. We did a little research, after speaking to Carol-Ann over the phone and meeting up with Robert, we didn’t spend long making a choice and just went ahead based on Florigo’s reputation.
I really like the basket frying. Meaning we can make the chips to order, so a fresher product for our customers to enjoy – We can work to how busy we are. We blanch and fry and it works great. The pan is a consistent temperature – which means it isn’t dropping and causing delays in the product cooking.
The finished product is fresher and better. The fish is cooked and sealed to a better finish. We have an Island Range so we aren’t tripping over the servers as we can push the chips through to the front. It’s given us more space to work both cooking and serving. I really couldn’t imagine going back to the old range and not cooking on a Florigo.
Since the shop redesign we have got a better process in place to suit the demand of the business.
We have signed up to the service plan which gives us piece of mind and know that if we need the aftercare the team will be available to come and help us.
We’re grateful to business owners from across the UK who have taken the time to speak with us about the benefits of Florigo ownership – watch and read their feedback on our customers page ››