The Deep Sea Restaurant, an institution in Dundee for 77 years, has been sold to the owners of a prominent seafood restaurant in St Andrews.
The famous old chipper will close at the end of this month and owners Raymond Sterpaio, 71, his brother Lawrence, 66, and wife Dorothy, 62, are relieved to be calling it a day.
“We will have many happy memories but are pleased to be selling to people who we are confident will continue the restaurant’s reputation,” said Raymond.
“Our father opened it in 1937 so we have been here for a long time. We want to retire and our own sons and daughters all have their own lives so we have no one to pass it on to.”
Over the years Deep Sea customers have included famous actors appearing in the city, including Joanna Lumley, Sir Sean Connery and Richard Todd.
Brian Cox has also dined there as have politicians Lord Thomson, Lord McConnell and George Galloway.
Among other reminiscences are the time the Tay Road Bridge was built in the 1960s.
Lawrence said: “Their workers loved our fish and chips and they would come up with orders for 200 or 300 suppers at a time.”
New owner Gordon Spink said the popular Nethergate eaterie will operate as a Tailend-themed restaurant next year after a £200,000 refurbishment.
He has yet to decide on the name above the door when the restaurant reopens in the spring of next year.
“It will be a Tailend like the one in St Andrews with the same menu and atmosphere,” he said.
“I very much respect the history of the Deep Sea and the regard in which it is held by people in Dundee.
“If we decide to call it the Tailend and not the Deep Sea, there will definitely be a reference to the Deep Sea inside.”
Mr Spink, of GA Spink fish merchants, will run the Nethergate business with his son Darren.
A third Tailend restaurant in Edinburgh is leased to a tenant rather than being run by the Spinks.