SUMNER DAIRY SELLS OUT OF HOT CHIPS DURING POWER CUT, OWNER 'NOT SURE HOW'
The fryer was off. The chips kept coming. Then they didn't.
A Sumner dairy on the Esplanade managed to sell its entire stock of hot chips during Tuesday afternoon's three-hour power cut, despite the fryer being, by all accounts, stone cold and switched off at the wall.
Owner Manjit Singh told The Daily Yarn he'd been running chips out of the warmer for the first forty minutes, then "out of nowhere" for the next two hours. "People kept coming in. I kept handing over scoops. Didn't think about it too hard. Didn't want to."
Customer Glenys Patterson, 71, said she'd queued for twenty minutes behind a bloke in board shorts who'd ridden up from the beach. "Chips were warmish. Bit soft. Wouldn't have said no to a second scoop, mind." Asked whether she'd questioned the physics, Glenys said: "I'm from Sumner, love. We don't ask."
This correspondent remembers when the old chippy by the pier did proper chips in dripping, 1974 it would've been, and you knew where you stood. You stood in a queue, and the fryer was on. Simple times.
Orion confirmed power was out across the Sumner-Redcliffs area from 1.40pm to 4.50pm. A spokesperson, asked about the chips, said it was "not within our scope to comment on retail outcomes during outages".
Manjit has since restocked. He is, he says, "not taking questions about the warmer".
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Reader Letters
Sandra McKenzie
Why does no one care about health regulations? I bet they're breaking all sorts of rules, handing out soft chips in the dark. Food safety, people!
tired_in_riccarton
Nobody called inspector gadget?
ropeable_dave
@Sandra McKenzie, calm down! Imagine a world without guilt over warmish chips. That's the real miracle!
KiwianaKerry
Bloody miracles, mate! Maybe Sumner's finally got its own Bermuda Triangle, but for chips.
Trevor_Hornby
Can we focus on the fact that maybe Manjit has unlocked the power of sustainable energy? If he can run fryers without power, why aren't we funding this genius?
RipVanRangiora
HAH! Sumner chips are magic! Manjit, where's the secret fry sauce, mate?
Garry (Halswell)
Mate, they've been serving chips since before you Gen Z'ers were born! In the '60s, chips didn't need fancy fryers. We had community spirit and maybe a bit more flavour too, if I'm honest.
couchgremlin
Lol.