Beloved fish and chippery closes after 20 years

Gary Constable had hoped to quietly lock the doors of Barwon Heads Fish & Chips for the final time on Sunday and slip into retirement without any fuss.

But his partner and co-owner Donna Irwin had other ideas.

Irwin invited musician friends to perform, turning the end of the couple’s 20-year lease at the Hesse Street shopfront into a celebration.

Customers past and present dropped into the “happy retirement” party throughout the afternoon and evening to share their memories and pass on their best wishes.

Constable said his original plan had been to progressively run out of the shop’s existing stock before “hanging up the basket”.

“I planned my departure very carefully – after 20 years, you know your stock and your consumption,” he said.

“My idea was that I was going to close the door tonight, flip the sign that says ‘closed’ and underneath put ‘for ever’ and that was it; head off into the sunset.

“But my partner is almost the self-appointed mayor of Barwon Heads. She wouldn’t miss the opportunity of having a party and a send-off, so she did.

“So here I am. I’ve had to go out and buy stock to close.”

Irwin said holding a party made it easier to publicly explain the closure.

“I think we owed it to all our regulars to give them a bit of warning,” he said.

She said she was grateful for the outpouring of support for the business since its closure was announced last week.

 

Barwon Heads Fish & Chips opened in the 1950s.

Constable first visited the shop as a four-year-old in 1962 and said things had come full circle after he later took over the business and ultimately became the person to close it.

He said he had been surprised by the level of support from locals and long-time customers during the final days of trading.

“At first I thought ‘Wow. I didn’t realise that I’d made such an impact on people’,” he said.

“But it’s the end of an era. This shop’s been here for 80 years, and it’s a little bit of a time capsule in the way I’ve set it up with all the old pictures in here.

“Maria [Malakellis] from Kiitos, who grew up in here when I was a teenager, she cries whenever she sees that Laminex [and says] ‘My dad put that in!’.”

Constable worked seven days a week in the business and said he has no regrets about closing, jokingly comparing his retirement to being released from prison.

 

“This morning I got up and I went to a meeting at the parole board, and they’ve given me the good news that because of my behaviour I’m getting an early release and it starts tomorrow,” he said.

“20 years in a fish and chip shop or any small business for that matter… these days, you do it hard.

“For small business, the climate has changed so I was happy to hang up the basket and spend some more time with the family.”

Barwon Heads is now without a dedicated fish and chip shop and Constable said he hoped someone would soon pick up the basket somewhere in the town.

“There’s people who are already moving, so I hope it’s not long before we get that going again and I’m happy to help anybody,” he said.

Constable plans to return to sailing now he has retired and spend more time playing golf.