Scottish chip shop wins fight against local council over 'deep-fried Mars Bar birthplace' banner
/The Scots as a whole are generally proud of their castles, whisky, rolling hills and bagpipes. But another of Scotland's claims to fame divides opinions — the deep-fried Mars Bar.
A fish and chip shop in Stonehaven, in Scotland's north-east, proudly claims to be the birthplace of the now internationally renowned snack.
The shop recently found itself targeted by the local council, who were concerned about the merits for the local community of promoting a chocolate bar dipped in batter.
Over the years — and it has been more than two decades — I have weathered a few deep-fried Mars Bar jokes.
Loading...The product, if you can call it that, is said to have been born in 1992 when a schoolboy requested one at the Haven fish bar, now trading as the Carron, in Stonehaven near Aberdeen.
The concept of Scots, known for their poor diet, dipping a chocolate bar in batter caught the world's imagination.
The Carron Fish Bar's manager, Murray Watson, concedes it is not a healthy choice.
"There's no point in denying it isn't healthy, but it's a wee snack, it's not something we say have one for breakfast, lunch and tea every day," he said.
"It's something people come in for, you maybe get a group of 10 people who have 10 Mars bars, you might get a family of four and they have one Mars Bar split between the four of them.
"They want to tick it off their wish list and say we have been there, tried it and got the t-shirt."
A banner outside the Carron Fish Bar proudly declares it to be the 'Birthplace of the World Famous Deep Fried Mars Bar'.
But the local council recently decided that was not the kind of image they wanted to project about Stonehaven and asked the shop to consider taking it down.
"From a business point of view, we are very upset here," Mr Watson said.
"You try to build a business, you try to publicise it and so for them [local council] to come here and say you need to take down a sign that is a big part of business ... it's quite disheartening really.
"It's bringing people to our shop, it's bringing people to Stonehaven and I guarantee that some of them would have went into other shops, local shops and spent money as well.
"It's done well for our business, as well as Stonehaven as a whole."
But the council has been forced to backtrack in the face of a backlash to the idea that Stonehaven should dissociate itself from a product so famous that even Jay Leno mentioned it on his show.
So the sign is staying put and business, Murray Watson says, could not be better.
"We normally sell 150 to 200 per week," Mr Watson said.
"But the past couple of weeks have been very manic, we've got to 350."
Mr Watson says he too indulges in the odd deep-fried Mars Bar.
"Yes, I generally do like them," he said.
"People either love it, or hate it."
For the record, I personally have never tried a deep-fried Mars Bar.
But maybe now I will.