I tried a West Midlands town's lowest hygiene rated chippy - here's what happened

I recently discovered I lived on the door step of one of Rowley Regis’ lowest hygiene rated fish and chip shops, so I decided to pay the chippy a visit to see what it was really like.

Food hygiene ratings are awarded following inspections by local council’s officers who assess businesses on areas such as food handling and cleanliness.

The Village Chippy in Rowley Regis received a hygiene rating of one out of five with Sandwell Council saying the takeaway needed ‘major improvements’. The rating is as of March 9, 2026.

Hygiene score revealed that 246 of the 261 rated takeaways & sandwich shops in Sandwell have a higher rating than the Village Chippy and just 4 have a lower rating.

The weakest found areas were how food safety is managed with ‘major improvement necessary’, however a low rating does not mean the business is unsafe to eat from it simply means the inspector found problems that had to be put right.

Fish and chips are a Black Country favourite but would you still fancy a portion knowing the place serving it had one of the lowest hygiene scores in the area? This is the question I wanted to answer and with curiosity getting the better of me I decided to head to the chippy to see what I would find.

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Upon arriving at the chippy I paid attention to the cleanliness and appearance of the shop, expecting to see worrying droppings, perhaps dirt and grime too but I wasn’t met with this. The chippy simply looked like your classic Black Country fish and chip shop.

I decided to keep things simple and order a small chips and a battered sausage but I still had my reservations.

One user took to google reviews and said: “not nice, not clean. The chips are either over cooked and dry or under cooked. I saw the man pick his nose while serving customers yuk.”

Another said: “Inedible and disgusting.”

After my food arrived I began to tuck in to see if the food would dispel my earlier reservations. I didn’t think it looked very appealing but to my surprise it was passable but perhaps on the dryer and paler side in line with the reviews. The member of staff was friendly and the service was quite quick too.

While a food hygiene rating is a main factor for myself and many regarding where to order a takeaway from, the Village Chippy was passable and not the ‘filth-fest’ I initially thought it could be.