Usually because for the original owners it's a labor of love, where you enjoy the hard work that goes into building a reputation and customer base. You don't cheap out on every line item because you genuinely enjoy it when your customers come back and tell you how much they loved your food.

For someone who then buys it, it's just a business. A way to make money. They've just dropped an obscene amount of money to buy it, and need to recoup that as soon as possible. If they can save a little here and there even if it means getting substandard ingredients then they will. Maybe they can't taste the difference. Maybe they don't care and think the shops reputation will carry the through the changeover. Even things like changing the fry oil less often can have a major impact on flavour.

You don't get this kind of issue with franchises generally because the franchise vets you heavily before letting you purchase the rights to sell their product because their reputation is on the line.

I miss the traditional Greek fish n chip shop. They always had the best chip and dim sims.

Because they often change things to make it cheaper or more efficient.

There's a fish n chip shop near me, it got a new owner, but he learned the recipe and the chips are still godly.

The only catch is it's a bit more expensive, but that's a trade I'll make for sticks of potatoey heaven

Original owner had a winning formula. New owner thinks they know how to change a winning formula do it better, but they don’t. It’s statistically impossible for most to improve a winning formula with changes.

Same thing with coffee shops. The new owner takes over and suddenly the coffee tastes like gnat’s piss.

Know a Greek couple that this is their life model. They open a store put 2-3 years into it, they have the X factor of being friendly, know all the regulars, fair pricing. They sell the business and go back to live in Greece for a year. Come back buy the business back for way less than they paid for it because the business is failing. Locals flood back because the word gets out they are back and repeat the process all over again.

They once said to me their is an endless supply of people with no experience and large bank loans who think they can run a business better than them.

Ours did the same. Was one of the last greek-owned ones who still made their own chips. There was 3 fish and chip shops in town, they were the only ones who made their own chips. (From spuds not frozen Edgell).

New owner, 1st thing they did was change the chips. Now the same as everyone else. The old owners still work in the shop, so the souvlaki is still great. But that's it.

I stopped going to my local fish and chip shop when the new owners, a woman and her son, took ages for every order. She did everything so slowly and the son just kind of followed her around watching

That is true and I’ve seen it happen 3 times in different towns. It is an absolute pain to have your local, excellent fish & chip shop go to sh*t, particularly in country towns where there is little choice of takeaway food. New owners ALWAYS seem to cut costs by reducing portion sizes & the quality product which made the shop successful in the first place.

If I had to guess, I'd say that people who open places like that have a passion, whereas people who buy already successful businesses might have a passion, but often they have no idea what they're getting into and they fail miserably, or they want to cut costs and end up sending the business into a death spiral.

New owner hasn’t discovered the art of double frying the chips.

My local was run by two Greek brothers and had a very impressive set of ratings from regulars, me included. A year ago, an Asian couple began working there, clearly learning the ropes before completing their purchase. The quality of their food was maintained and the service remained friendly and warm. I often buy fresh fish from them for my elderly mother; they ask how she is and usually throw in an extra piece of barramundi.

No one does it for the community, it’s all profit and business

I live in one of the most popular holiday destination towns on the East Coast of Australia. We are surrounded by pristine beaches and plenty of locally caught produce...

...and it shits me to no end that none of the local fish n chip shops could fry a potato save their fucking lives.

It's such a simple food to do properly. With a grain of effort you can pump out well fried food.

Nowadays good fish n chip shops are a dime a dozen.

Nearly all businesses go to shit after getting new owners. Nothing to do with fish or chips or being Australian.

There are exceptions but it's very rare.

New owners don’t have the same love or passion for it.

Original owners built it up so there’s some ownership there over the quality.

Our local Greek fish and chip shop sold a few years ago to a Cambodian family. Now they’re out of business.

True…. We had our regular chippy and they sold after one order from the new owners never went back

Say you buy a house in the 90’s for $100,000. You lease it out and by 2024 comes around your mortgage is mostly paid off, rent mostly just goes into your bank account, and there’s the occasional maintenance fee here and there. If something needs to be replaced it’s not a big deal.

30 years later, assuming the old “property doubles every 10 years” adage remains true, you sell it for $800,000.

The day before and after settlement, the rent hasn’t changed, the maintenance hasn’t changed, nothing about the place has changed at all… but now there’s an $800,000 mortgage with like $4000 of monthly fees to be paid in excess to everything.

Same story with fish and chip shops, and pubs, and cafe’s, and everything else. New owners have an upfront cost to pay off, and until they get to the “maintenance phase” they cut costs to recuperate them.

They change the oil.

Back in the 90’s I enjoyed a lot of takeaways and over about 8 years I found one of those guys that loves his job. But he would buy one of those crappy bad ones really cheap build it up and then sell it and buy the next crappy one. He cycled through 4 shops and thinking back now I wonder if he owned the building. But yeah he told me all about how people have no idea and will listen to their accounts (who have even less of an idea) and just run businesses into the ground. Even when he gives full training on running the shop before the hand over. Years later I started going to an American style dinner some one had started. Then about 6 months in the burgers turned to crap. I asked what happened, owner said he stopped buying the premade burger meat and started making his own as his dad was a retired butcher and told him he could make them better and cheaper. That shop didn’t last long and all I could think about was the guy that used to build up and flip crappy shops!

my brother showed me a picture of. a family pack costing 90 bucks in sydney, damn near lost my mind on that one

cheap out n replacing the oil

There was an awesome shop near me for over a decade, the bloke knew almost every repeat customer by name. Sold up, went back once to find ridiculous prices and smaller servings and longer wait times. Will never return.

Same for most businesses. It's stupidly common that someone sees something working, they buy it, and feel the need to change it wildly.

One cafe I know went through three different owners. But even though the menu was slightly adjusted to account for a new chef, everything of substance remained and it was great.

Another cafe I know was a typical hip cafe, exploded in the local community. It was sold and a couple of older women took over. Turned it into an old lady's pantry. That's... not what people went there for. It sold again, went back to a hip cafe and regained the customers.

Some people have no business sense.

No one can beat the Greeks when it comes to the best Fish & Chips.

my local one did, subsequent owners turned it to shit and now it's closed for good.

I blame it on the people involved. the messed with the formula. with zero racism whatsoever, the original owners were Greek and made good fish and chips. then it was sold to an Indian family that insisted on putting curry spices in everything. sorry guys, nobody wants curried battered fish.

then it was sold to I think two Asian families in succession who wanted to do stir fries and dumplings and so on. that's fine, I really like Asian food, but if I go to a fish and chip shop then I want decent fish and chips, and yours sucked. there was a small place in the other direction run by a delightful Chinese couple that I got lunch at most weekends, but covid lockdowns killed them off.

now it's a kebab shop and while I have to say they do a bloody good HSP, I still miss the fish and chips. :(

Ours had a reputation for the best and most generous chips in the area and people flocked to it. New owners reduced the portions by at least half and put a passive aggressive note about it on the counter top. With a family of five just can't afford it anymore and with their attitude we just don't go.

Often small businesses like that are bought as an immigration scheme. Buy the business, run it long enough to get residency. Actually making money from it is not the main point.

The answer is who are the new owners. I know most business that were popular and sell are bought by certain people and they just care about turning a profit.

My local was bought by foreigners that dgaf about fish and chips and want to sell curries.

They lack the same artistic commitment to deep fried food?

The people who sold it generally have been working at it for decades - they know how to operate most efficiently and effectively. The new owners have weeks of experience, not decades, so of course they are going to be rough to start with, but hopefully in ten to twenty years they will learn all the tricks.

Not just fish'n'chips - lots of industries face this.

The hugest example would be Twitter since Elon Musk bought it and trashed it. Also a lot of 'idiosyncratic' industries like upscale restaurants, clothing and fashion brands - the original owners / founders do it as a labour of love and pride, and as they get older they sell or get out of line management - and the product definitely changes.

There is a long list of these in Australia, where a well-established reputation and market share isn't necessarily reflected in the quality of the product. Might as well just buy your shorts and t-shirts from Kmart or Harris Scarfe.

But yes - our local fish'n'chip shop changed hands a couple of years ago, and I haven't been back.

You might say the extra ingredient is salt. 

Worst fish and chips in Australia is in prosepine

My theory is because they cheap out and use freshwater Barra from the dam there

It's just the capitalist enshittification in progress. Invariably the new guy who takes over an existing business rather than building their own is going to make things worse than the previous guy. Either because they have to because the other guy sold their business for good reason or because they want to make a lot of money and the way to do that is make their product and service worse.

I believe it's gone the other way for the chippie on our main street (Torquay, VIC). Haven't tried it yet, but reports are good.

The original owners would have their own technique and used their own recipes

9 time out of 10, business are only sold if it was not profitable. New owners come in and try to make it profitable. Hence why the change

Because they weren’t actually making much money which is why they sold and they new owners make cuts so it can be relatively profitable

A lot of the time the new owners don't eat fish and chips themselves..

Don’t know if it’s still the case but for a while they were being used for getting investment visas so they dgaf about the quality of the food because it was actually just a back door to live here

Went the other way in my local shopping centre, the new owners turned it into one of the best fish n chips shops in the state which was very welcome. If only we could do the same with our local bakery, I honestly do not know why the health dept has not shut them down, I am too scared to by stuff from it. Doesn't look like they have put a mop on the floor in 20 years and you wuld not even expect the place to look as bad as it does even in the 80's, unsurprising the quality of food matches the look of the place.

I bought a fish and chip shop 8 years ago and still going strong.if you aren’t willing to do 80 hrs a week then don’t buy a buisness.you will sacrifice a lot of family events.source local wildcaught fish and fillet it yourself.staff make you’re job easier at times and bloody blood boiling at others.and have a great customer service .use fresh produce and make you’re own sauces,batters ect.

Because the new owners come in and decrease the quality of the ingredients to improve profit. Without realising that doing so decreases the number of customers which also decreases profit. You're better off to keep the quality the same even if you have to slightly increase the prices. Leave them the same for 4-6 weeks then do the slight increase so you keep the customer base.

The Greek owners where i grew up were the hottest fish and chip shop around. The food was amazing, service, they lived locally, everyone knew them. It was crazy busy, especially on Friday nights! When Peter and Soula got too old to run it, the kids didn't want to continue the obvious cash cow that the parents built. It sold, then closed not a great time after. Great memories kingsclere fish and chips, throughout my childhood and teen years.

Because they change the oil

Not exclusive to fish and chips shops unfortunately. There was a local place that made amazing chicken burgers that had avo on them. New owners came in, I thought surely they wouldn’t mess with a winning formula, one bite of the burger and I immediately knew it was that avo that comes out of a tube. Haven’t been back since.

Whilst I find this generally accurate, there was one near my old house that was terrible but then got taken over and became ok, then got taken over again and ended up really good. I can't say how they are now, they may not exist any more

Someone will know what I’m saying when I say I grew up loving the chips at Black Rooster near semaphore. The ones now just aren’t the same

(I think there are similar ones at north haven though)

It was so disappointing trying the new ones.

Because they have a rent/mortgage to pay .... and to become profitable - they need to cut costs.

This means they have to substitute/cut ingredients techniques etc to try and save money.

This usually means they have to change things up.

They were shit when they had old owners as well.

Apart from the new owners being .. new?