As he hauled produce around in a van and infused fish and ducks in a home-made smoker, Peter Hogan learned that in the food business it pays to be consistent and do one or a few things very well rather than offer huge menus.

He began his street-food business while working as a teacher in Essex and soon it was thriving to the extent that his then-girlfriend, now-wife Jumoke was helping. “It was hard work,” she smiles. “But fun.”

The pair had met in London when training to be teachers – he in economics and she in sociology – and it was a colleague, a tech-teacher, who helped build the fish-smoker.

The pair loved cooking, eating out and street food and that was what gave Peter, from Waterford, the idea of starting his own street-food business. “We learned a lot,” says Jumoke, who grew up in Hackney, London. “Mainly what not to do.”

“Yes,” says Peter, “how difficult it is to do anything well – so you have to do one thing really well.”

And that is what they are doing back in Dublin, with their Fish Shop restaurants: a business that has evolved from a fish-and-chip stall in Blackrock market to a Seafood restaurant on Queen Street near Smithfield in Dublin and a classy chipper, the Fish and Chip Shop on Benburb Street, where the trad fare comes with good wine.

The teaching and street-food business went hand-in-hand for six years and then the couple decided to move to Dublin, in 2013. They stayed with family while they opened the fish-and-chip stall in Blackrock, knocking a hole in a shed for a hatch and building a covered seating area. They opened in October and . . . nothing much happened. “We kind of stood there until March. There was no passing trade,” says Peter.

Getting it right

So did they ever think of giving up? The pair look bemused. No. “It gave us time to get it right,” says Peter. “It wasn’t consistent enough at the start. By Christmas, we knew we had a really good product. And the people who did come were lovely – they took a chance on us. We got repeat trade and word of mouth built up and then, coming into summer, it got busier and busier.”

As mainstream and social media began to write about them, business grew further. “We had a great summer,” says Peter. Jumoke describes cycling to work and back and how they would have up to 15 people sitting at the tables they had set out, eating fish and chips in the sun.

As winter breezed in again, along with memories of standing on cardboard to keep the cold from freezing them from the feet up, the pair decided to open a restaurant in town and found the premises in Queen Street which used to be a storage space for Bargaintown furniture, and came complete with piles of mattresses. But there was no time for rest. They had a short period rent-free and, this time, they were busy from day one – with queues out the door.

Centre ground

They had a no-booking policy and filled that much-sought-after central ground in Dublin, for restaurants with good-food mains at €15, offering fish and chips and bowls of mussels, gradually adding new dishes and moving on from frying everything.

Peter takes the floor and Jumoke cooks – increasing her repertoire through research, reading, eating and cooking. She learned to cook at home where, she says, each time her Nigerian mother created meals, Jumoke would be in the kitchen with her: “You weren’t allowed to stay in your room while she was cooking.”

So with the Queen Street restaurant busy, the couple took another brave decision, and closed it in April 2015. But that was because they had decided to have two business: the Seafood Restaurant and the Fish and Chip Shop and Wine Bar down the road. Following the do-one-thing-well philosophy, they have a set menu in the Seafood Restaurant featuring the catch of the day – sourcing good suppliers was something they learned from their street-food days. If it’s been stormy and the fishing boats have not set to sea, the menu turns closer to shore, with shellfish. Wine is a big focus in the Fish and Chip Shop, again sourced from suppliers in Ireland who “know a lot about wine and are willing to teach”.

The Seafood Restaurant opened in July 2016 and the couple married the following month.

They have been brave – and hardworking – and netted a good offering. “I am pleased I gave up teaching,” says Peter, “even though we both liked it. Thinking of an idea and realising it . . . ”

“It’s an exciting, interesting life,” agrees Jumoke. “It’s a different life but we like it.”