Ireland’s chippers fight through challenging times with vegan options and Insta strategies

Every day at work, Louise Duffy carefully sets up her phone to film and upload videos of day-to-day life in a busy chipper. The Instagram and TikTok clips are watched by thousands of people across Ireland, with the backlit menus and shiny silver counter of Rio’s Fish and Chips in Castletroy, Co Limerick, now a familiar sight for the ever-growing number of viewers.

Duffy has been manager and supervisor of Rio’s since it reopened in August 2024 under new ownership, the previous iteration having closed during the pandemic. The business struggled with retaining customers in the first few months after it opened, until Duffy learned from a friend how social media could be harnessed to change a business’s fortunes.

“I am a personal friend of Lee Reeves, the boxer [who has more than 60,000 TikTok followers],” says Duffy. “I asked him would he come over and do a little promotional video for Rio’s for me, as a friend, and to be honest in it. So he came in and did a food review in December 2024. When he did the food review, we were inundated with business. People got a true sense of who we were at that time. It was like we relaunched Rio’s through Lee.”

After this experience, Duffy started posting about Rio’s on social media herself. Last October, she started daily posts, with her content ranging from showcasing new and creative menu items or banter with other staff, to inte