Salty's Fish and Chips coming to Cloverdale

There's a building in the northeast section of the Clover Square Village on 177B Street and Highway 10 and I see a sign on it that Salty's Fish and Chips is opening soon.

I'm assuming Salty's may be a franchise because I've eaten at the one in White Rock.

Is it a good thing to be coming to Cloverdale? There already is a fish and chips place downtown on 176th Street across from the Clova Theater - Sea Shanty. So, yes Cloverdale could probably use another fish and chips place, that's not the reason I'm questioning them.

Its the building they're moving to. Right now half of the building is the UPS store - courier and mailbox rentals. The side that Salty's is moving to has been the kiss of death for many restaurants over the past 10 years or so since its built.

Originally it was a donut shop, this was a few years before Tim Hortons came to town. I don't remember the name, an independent franchise. It closed down and another donut shop opened, this one a franchise, again the name escapes me but it might have been Robin's Donuts. I remember going in there one night around 10pm and they didn't have any donuts. All they had was coffee. "Come back around 2am," said the cashier. "The baker will be on shift and there will be donuts."

Yeah, I'll get that right on that and set my alarm to wake me up in a couple of hours so I can go back for donuts. I mean is it just me but when a business has "donuts" as part of their name, is it unreasonable to expect to go in during their business hours and purchase, say, donuts? I remember we ended up driving to Langley to buy donuts from Tim Hortons.

That may have been its demise if everytime customers went in to buy donuts and they were out so people went elsewhere and never returned. Ever hear of consumer confidence?

Its been a variety of restaurants over the years. Among others I remember an Indian restaurant, a sushi restaurant, and most recently a Bread Garden. Those are the ones I remember but never was a customer.

Its kind of a bad location. You have to drive through the Chevron gas station to get to it. It gets overlooked by people who see a variety of restaurants ahead in the next block or so: A & W, Ricky's, Tim Hortons, McDonald's, Wendy's, Starbucks.

I like fish and chips. Maybe I'll come down one night and check it out. I wish them luck staying open. They're going to need it. That place has been the kiss of death for every other eating establishment that's tried to make a go of it over the years.