Why it started, no one is entirely sure. What is clear, however, is that an unsuspecting chip shop in the Midlands can now claim to have gone “eight viral” thanks to the social networking site TikTok.
Coventry’s Binley Mega Chippy staff noticed something was happening as customers from across the UK and abroad began to appear in recent days.
There was the Dundee minibus, and then families from Essex and Portsmouth. Someone flew from Portugal. Another went straight there after landing from Australia.
Visitors seem 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 store’s owner. “It started to get busy on Thursday, and I noticed that there were people in front of me taking pictures. I said, ‘What are people doing?’ viral.
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The song was just the beginning. It has generated remixes and reviews of Binley Mega Chippy, with a particular focus on the restaurant’s £ 4.99 “Morbius Meal”. It consists of fish and chips, white peas and a can of fizzy drink.
On Monday morning there were people queuing outside the store before it opened and many others, mostly teenagers, posing for the photos under their stunning red and yellow sign.
Ellie and George Foster, aged 16 and 15, traveled from Huthwaite, Nottinghamshire, wearing Binley Mega Chippy Mega Fan T-shirts. “We saw it on TikTok. It’s pretty random and that’s what makes it fun,” Ellie said. “We made the T-shirts to put on when we came, and they gave us a bottle of lemonade and photos with them.
“I’m not normally a person of fish and chips, but for Binley Mega Chippy I had to have some.”
“Of all the things they wanted to do in the medium term, this was the first on their list,” the brothers ’mother, Claire, said. “We could have gone to the beach, but no, they said they wanted to go to Binley Mega Chippy.”
Friends Taylor, 18, Angus, also 18, and Amir, 19, traveled from London to sample some of the xippy’s food. “We were on a call this morning, laughing at the Binley Mega Chippy and one of us said,‘ Should we go? ’Taylor said. “I think it’s one of those things where it’s so random, it’s fun. They didn’t even do the song themselves and they’ve had so much free publicity.”
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Store staff were especially baffled because 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 store eight months ago, even though the xippy has been there for more than a decade.
“We will not complain. We have to ask for more, because if we stay that way, we won’t be able to cope. We’ll have to see how the week goes … We have to be prepared, we don’t want to run out of food. We have to bring all the staff.
“I think the novelty will be exhausted, we know that. But you never know, it could go on all summer long. “
He said a customer who arrived on Monday told him he had flown from Sydney, Australia, and jumped straight into a rental car to come to Binley Mega Chippy. “We had people from Portsmouth, Essex, Dundee. We were closed on Sunday and there were still a lot of people outside taking pictures. There were 30 cars outside,” he said.
“It’s all young people. Most people just want to try the fries and curry sauce. But we just want all our customers to be happy, on a regular basis. “
“One of my friends who lives in Surrey said she really wanted to come, so I said I’d come and take a picture of her,” said 11-year-old Olivia Taylor, who was visiting with her step-sister. Gracie Charlton, of Hatton near Warwick. “The song is everywhere, it’s crazy.”
“It’s absolutely ridiculous. Everyone is obsessed with TikTok,” said mother Rachel Charlton. “Yesterday we were in the middle of the deepest and darkest part of Wales on a mountain for a mountain bike race and we could hear people talking about it. So we just had to come.”