PARTY FOOD FROM THE SEAFOOD SHACK
Founded in 2016 by Fenella Renwick and Kirsty Scobie, The Seafood Shack in Ullapool has enjoyed rip-roaring success. Here, the pair tell their story and share some amazing recipes that are perfect for any festive gathering, whatever size it may be...
The two entrepreneurs behind Ullapool’s Seafood Shack have their first recipe
book coming out soon – whip up these treats when entertaining…
On 3 May 2016 we opened The Seafood Shack in Ullapool. It was a very exciting day for us, our emotions veering from panic when somebody would come to order, laughter when things went wrong, and joy when we successfully closed up for the first day. In total we probably had 20 customers at most, but for us it was a great start to our new venture. We have kept The Seafood Shack a small business but we’ve now got around eight staff and are open seven months of the year, serving up to 300 customers a day. Really it’s pretty amazing our wee Shack can cope sometimes, let alone us!
To this day we still have disagreements or ‘different memories’ on how or when we decided to open The Seafood Shack but we both agree exactly on why. We live in Ullapool, a small fishing village on the north-west coast of Scotland where there are currently around seven local creel boats, four local trawling boats and over a dozen visiting boats landing each week. Many tonnes of seafood are caught in our Scottish seas and then transported straight out of Ullapool. We wanted to play a part – albeit small – in keeping some of our seafood local.
Since then, we’ve never looked back.
Although the business is physically the same size, it has grown in so many ways. We are so glad that we didn’t start a restaurant – what we really love is being behind the hatches, cooking away and chatting to our customers as they devour a haddock wrap or peel open some fresh buttery langoustines. We get a great sense of connection with our customers and the chat back and forth plays a major part in our day-to-day life at work. We always have a laugh in the Shack and it’s important to us to keep it that way – a small business, without the stress of managing huge staff numbers, big business rates, pressure to make money in the quiet winter months and all the rest of it; we want to keep it fun! And if we can make a happy living from it, then we’re winning.