Published 26, 2022

It had nothing at all to do with religion. It was just what everyone did on a Friday. And I loved every moment of it, fatty batter and all. On each and almost every Friday, I ate fish and chips.

So imagine how I felt when I saw some almost-bring-me-to-tears news this week. My local fish and chip shop in Toronto, a place that had been around for almost a century, had locked their doors.

The shop was called Reliable Fish & Chips. They’d opened their doors back in 1930 to fulfill the Friday needs for grease of the employees of The Reliable Toy Company.

So next, a little bit about that toy company courtesy of the Canadian Museum of History:

“In 1935, Reliable became the largest toy factory in the British Empire, occupying 72,000 square feet in a new location at 258 Carlaw Avenue. This factory contained a complete knitting mill to manufacture clothing for dolls and featured a hairdressing department, as well as specialty sections for making voice boxes and squeakers, shoes, and eyes. A year later, Reliable’s annual production of dolls reached to over one and a half million dolls of three hundred varieties.”

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