Quite why it started, nobody is entirely sure. What is clear, however, is that an unsuspecting chip shop in the Midlands can now claim to have “gone viral” thanks to the social media site TikTok.
Staff at Binley Mega Chippy in Coventry realised something was up when customers began appearing from all over the UK – and abroad – in recent days.
There was the minibus from Dundee, and then families from Essex and Portsmouth. Someone flew over from Portugal. Another went straight there after touching down from Australia.
Visitors appear to have been drawn to the fast food restaurant by a catchy music video posted on TikTok, which has now been viewed more than half a million times.
“I have no idea what happened,” said Kamal Gandhi, the shop’s owner. “Thursday it started to get busy, and I noticed people out the front taking pictures. I was just like, ‘What are people doing?’ We assume someone local who likes the food has made the song and it’s just gone viral.”
The song was just the start. It has spawned Binley Mega Chippy remixes and reviews, with a particular focus on the eatery’s £4.99 “Morbius Meal”. This consists of fish and chips, mushy peas and a can of fizzy drink.
By Monday morning there were people queueing outside the shop before it opened and many others, mainly teenagers, posing for photos underneath its striking red and yellow sign.
Ellie and George Foster, aged 16 and 15, travelled from Huthwaite in Nottinghamshire sporting Binley Mega Chippy Mega Fan T-shirts. “We saw it on TikTok. It’s just quite random and that’s what makes it funny,” said Ellie. “We made the T-shirts to wear when we came, and they gave us a free bottle of lemonade and photos with them.
“I’m not normally a fish and chip person, but for Binley Mega Chippy I had to have some.”
“Of all the things they wanted to do on half-term, this was top of their list,” said the siblings’ mother, Claire. “We could have gone to the seaside, but no, they said they wanted to go to Binley Mega Chippy.”
Friends Taylor, 18, Angus, also 18, and Amir, 19, travelled from London to sample some of the chippy’s food. “We were on a call this morning, laughing about the Binley Mega Chippy and one of us was just, like, ‘Should we go?’,” said Taylor. “I think it’s one of those things where it’s so random, it’s funny. They didn’t even make the song themselves, and they have got so much free publicity.”
The shop’s staff were particularly bemused as they don’t use social media to advertise their business. “We don’t do TikTok, we don’t do Twitter,” said Gandhi, who bought the shop eight months ago, although the chippy has stood there for more than a decade.
“We are not going to complain. We have to order more stuff, because if it stays like this, we won’t be able to cope. We will have to see how the week pans out … We have to be prepared, we don’t want to run out of food. We are having to bring all the staff in.
“I think the novelty will wear off, we do know that. But you never know, it could continue throughout the summer.”
He said one customer who arrived on Monday told him he had flown in from Sydney, Australia, and jumped straight in a hire car to come to Binley Mega Chippy. “We have had people from Portsmouth, Essex, Dundee. We were closed on Sunday and there were still loads of people outside taking pictures. There were 30 cars outside,” he said.
“It’s all the youngsters. Most people just want to try the chips and curry sauce. But we just want to keep all our customers happy, on a regular basis.”
“One of my friends who lives in Surrey said she really wanted to come, so I said I would come and take a photo for her,” said 11-year-old Olivia Taylor, who was visiting with her stepsister, Gracie Charlton, from Hatton near Warwick. “The song is everywhere – it’s crazy.”
“It’s absolutely ludicrous. They are just all obsessed with TikTok,” said mum Rachel Charlton. “Yesterday we were in the middle of deepest, darkest Wales on a mountain for a mountain biking race and we could hear people talking about it. So we just had to come.”
