By Mark Williams

Copyright dailypost

The Jones’s fish chip shop history began in Wrexham in 1911, when Francis Jones, the great-grandfather of the current owners opened one of the first fish and chip shops in the region, in a wooden hut, with a coal fire cooking range. In 1931, his son Fred followed in his footsteps and opened his own fish and chip shop, Jones’s fish and chip shop remains on the same site today, run by his family.

The family-run business has a legacy of entrepreneurial spirit, surviving the war years by stockpiling cooking fat and even collecting potatoes from farms during the war to make chips. The Jones’s Fish & Chip shop continues to operate in that spirit, serving the good folk of north Wales with chips for almost a hundred years.

Jones’s Chip Shop is split into two with both a busy café and an even busier takeaway area. The staff are dressed in identical black and white checkered aprons and looked well versed in dealing with long queues of ravenous customers.

The members of the team worked like a polished military machine, with one lady taking the orders whilst the others, shoveled chips into cones, baps and trays. Despite being really busy, they were calm and extremely pleasant, with nothing being too much trouble for them

Some customers didn’t even have to ask for anything, as the staff just enquired with ‘the usual’? The usual being a steaming pie and vivid green mushy peas in this case.

Huge slabs of fish on a plate were being prepared to be battered and lowered into a sizzling fryer. The aroma flowed out onto the street, tempting even more customers inside.

The overhead menu choice was relatively small but seemed to have all the chippy classics. A fish will set you back £4.70, Pie and chips £6.20 or you can have the exotic sounding cheese, gravy and chips for a fiver.

Specials include battered sausage with chips for £4, fish cake and chips for £4.20 or the different but very tempting sounding fish cake bap for £2.40. As I was looking at the overhead menu, a customer in front of me smiled and said that the fish was absolutely delicious.

The price of £7.20 for fish and chips seemed very reasonable compared to other chip shops, so I didn’t need much persuasion in that area. The speed in the delivery of the fish and chips was phenomenal and everything was cooked fresh in front of our very eyes.

I watched as a lady added both salt and vinegar to the glorious combination and handed the goods over the counter. The chips were cooked to perfection, crispy on the outside, hot and fluffy in the inside and of the same consistency.

The fish was non greasy and was just as long as the tray it was served in. The white fleshy meat was suitably flaky and moist with the outside batter, being beautifully crunchy but not too thick either.

My wife went for the humble chip bap, which was priced at £3.20. The floury bap was gloriously buttered for the chips to be simply slipped inside with no airs and graces.

Such a simple concept, which always seems to deliver. You really can’t beat a chip bap.

The amount of people coming in and out of the takeaway with cartons, trays, and cones was unbelievable. However, there didn’t seem to be a queue or any delay due to the number of staff working behind the counter.

At this rate and popularity, Jones’s Chip Shop may just go on for another hundred years at least.