Chappy's Fish and Chips and Winnipeg's fish and chips glory days

© 2022, Christian Cassidy

While researching the history of 2615 Portage Avenue, I came across the story of a short-lived Winnipeg-based restaurant chain called Chappy’s Authentic English Fish and Chips.

It was created by Richard “Dick” Bolt and Winnipeg-based Controlled Foods International (CFI).**  It was a food service company that operated 67 restaurants in Canada, including 45 A&W franchises and a few called Hickory House. It was also a wholesaler of restaurant supplies and equipment.

The company wanted to create a new restaurant chain that served up something other than burgers. It decided on fish and chips as it was familiar to consumers, made for a simple menu, and had relatively low food costs. It brought in staff and equipment to Winnipeg from the U.K. to work on recipes.

The first two "test stores" opened in early 1969 in Winnipeg and Columbia, South Carolina. Bolt told the Free Press that by the autumn of 1969 it hoped to have 200 restaurants operating on both sides of the border. (Speaking later to national media, he said it wanted 200 restaurants in Canada alone.)

** I have since found out that there may be more of a back story to the creation of the chain which I explain more in the "Chappy's in the U.S.A." section below.

Chappy's in Canada

Original Chappy's at 2615 Portage Avenue (2021 Google Street View)

The first Chappy's was the Winnipeg test store located in a former Salisbury House restaurant at 2615 Portage Avenue at Thompson Street.

The company had just a month to retrofit the building for its needs. For the exterior, the red roof was repainted in bluet and a "small, blue-roofed turret" was added to the roof. (Despite the turret and colour change, It still, though, resembled a Salisbury House from the era.)

The restaurant opened on April 30, 1969, and got thumbs up from the Winnipeg Free Press' "Coffee Chat" columnist Bill Tribilcoe for its simple menu of battered Atlantic cod and store-made chips which came in a small box wrapped in a fake newspaper lining.

December 5, 1969, Winnipeg Tribune

By the end of 1969, in addition to the Portage Avenue at Thompson location, there were Chappy's at 1531 Pembina Highway in Fort Garry and on Pembina Highway at Lorette. Early the following year came 1105 Notre Dame Avenue and 768 Nairn Avenue.

Chappy's were also springing up elsewhere in Canada during this period. By the end of 1969 there were around 26 locations.

The Vancouver Sun reported in August 1969 that Chappy's was coming to B.C. and grand opening ads soon followed for communities such as Vancouver, Langley, and Victoria.

The National Post reported in September 1969 that Chappy's had entered Ontario. Grand opening ads can be found for Toronto, Windsor, Brantford, and Kingston.

Newspaper ads can also be found for restaurants in Calgary and Saskatoon.

January 24, 1970, Winnipeg Free Press

In 1970, CFI moved its headquarters from Winnipeg to Vancouver.

Bolte cited rising corporate taxes and a worsening business climate in Manitoba as reasons for leaving. He also said that there were better opportunities for the restaurant business in the rapidly growing B.C. market.

The move to B.C. coincided with the unravelling of the Chappy's restaurant chain.

January 7, 1971, Winnipeg Tribune

The Winnipeg restaurants began closing one by one. First was the 1531 Pembina Highway location in early 1970. It was the only corporate-run location and struggled while being managed from another province. The four franchise locations closed within a few months of it.

The last Winnipeg location to close was the Pembina Highway at Lorette location in the first week of January 1971. Edward Rost, the franchisee, told the Free Press that his customer base was mainly British ex-pats and they couldn't seem to break through to other segments of the population. He also said that recent news stories about mercury levels in Atlantic fish didn't help to attract new customers.

It is unclear when the remaining Canadian locations closed.

CFI did carry on with its various franchise restaurants, such as A&W. In the late 1970s it added several Old Spaghetti Factory outlets. In the mid-1980s it merged with the company that owned The Keg.

August 13, 1970 Winnipeg Free Press

Local competition may have been another factor in the downfall of Chappy's.

In April 1970, Oliver Chips burst onto the scene with locations at 2027 Portage Avenue, 3053 Ness Avenue, and 1527 Main Street. It was a local chain owned by a consortium headed by Mickey Levine, the general manager of the International Inn.

Levine told a reporter that he thought the fish and chips market could handle more competition and that his chain had an upper hand in that it also served other food items such as chicken, meat pies, and ice cream.

During this time there was also a franchise of the U.S.-based chain H. Salt Esq. operating at Portage Avenue and Clifton Street. It was owned by Winnipeg-based Champs Foods Systems.

By the end of 1972, H. Salt Esq. and Oliver Chips went the way of Chappy's and Winnipeg's fish and chips glory days came to an end.

Since that time, Captain Scott's Fish and Chips, a B.C.-based chain established in 1975, came to Winnipeg around 1977 and had at least two or three stores until they closed around 1980.

In April 2004, Fergie's Fish and Chips opened at The Forks and now has three locations in the city.

Chappy's in the U.S.A.

**Since I originally published this post, I found in the comments section of this Columbia Closings Blog post that the first Chappy's may have opened in 1968 in Columbia, South Carolina, by Larry Merrell, Ray Bass and partners.

If it was 1968, not 1969, it could mean that Bolte or someone else associated with CFI saw it and decided to try and franchise it with these men as U.S. partners. It would explain why Columbia was chosen as the U.S. test market rather than somewhere more accessible from Winnipeg like Minneapolis or Chicago.

On the other hand, it could simply mean that the Columbia restaurant that opened in 1968 was the first U.S. franchise and it opened a few months prior to the first Canadian store.

I will update this post if I hear more information back from the comment poster.

The American arm of Chappy's appears to have fared better than its Canadian counterpart. (Canadian newspaper stories about CFI or the Chappy's only ever mention the U.S. operations in passing, so it is hard to piece together how the chain fared south of the border.)

What I did discover from the limited number of U.S. newspaper archives that I could access is that the Greenville (South Carolina) News reported on June 15, 1969 that local architect James A. Neal had been hired by CFI to design the U.S. restaurants for the chain. Looking at images of former stores at the Columbia Closings blog, the U.S. locations appear to have been smaller than two of the Winnipeg ones, though 1531 Pembina Highway and Nairn Avenue are similar in size, (see below).

A survey of a limited number of American newspaper archives from the late 1960s and early 1970s shows that Chappy's opened in El Paso, Texas in July 1969, Atlanta, Georgia in September 1969, Charlotte, North Carolina in December 1969, and Chicago (Bridgeview), Illinois in 1971. Comments in the Columbia Closing Blog also suggest that there was a store in Denver Colorado circa 1971.

According to the Columbia Closings blog, in its original U.S. market of Columbus, the number of Chappy's grew to five by 1987 and the author notes that "Chappy's Fish & Chips was a constant media presence on the radio" into the 1980s.

It is likely that CFI sold off its American Chappy's operations in the early 1970s to other interests and that is what allowed it to carry on. Stories about CFI in Canadian media from later in the 1970s do not mention Chappy's as one of its chains. (That blog post comment noted above suggests that there were eventually 300 locations in the U.S.)

Winnipeg's remaining Chappy's buildings:

2615 Portage Avenue at Thompson (Google Street View)
The original restaurant, a converted Salisbury House

1531 Pembina Highway at Dumas (Google Street View, 2009)
Corporate-owned, not franchised, and the first to close

525 Pembina Highway at Lorette (Google Street View, 2009)

Franchise-owned and the last to close

768 Nairn Avenue at Chester (Google Street View 2012)


1105 Notre Dame Avenue west of McPhillips (Demolished)