ONE OF Oldham’s best-known chippies is preparing to begin a new chapter after three decades serving customers from Tommyfield Market.
Levers held a soft opening at its new town centre premises on Friday, August 21, with the Mayor of Oldham, Councillor Pam Byrne, joining the team to mark the occasion.
The new shop, in the former BrightHouse unit opposite Home Bargains and next to Shoe Zone, will officially open to the public on Wednesday, August 26.
Until then, customers can continue to visit the existing Levers shop, which for the last 30 years has occupied one of the outdoor-facing units at the historic location.
The move may take Levers away from its familiar spot, but the business remains firmly rooted in a town with a particularly strong claim to fame when it comes to Britain’s love affair with chips.
A blue plaque outside the current shop records that the first chips are believed to have been fried in Oldham around 1860, adding that the origins of fish and chip shops – and ultimately the fast-food industry – can be traced back to the town.
Levers itself does not date back quite that far. Its familiar Tommyfield Market shop opened in 1991, but its location has helped keep the story of Oldham’s place in fish and chip history alive.
The tale also has another local connection just a few miles away in Mossley.
John Lees is believed to have taken inspiration from the fried chips being sold at Tommyfield before establishing a business on Stamford Street in Mossley around 1863 – laying claim to being among the country’s earliest fish and chip shops.
More than 160 years later, fish and chips remain one of Britain’s best-known dishes, having provided an affordable meal through world wars, recessions and generations of changing tastes.
Now Levers is taking that tradition into a new era as it swaps its long-standing Tommyfield home for a prominent new shop in the heart of Oldham town centre.
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