James Fish Bar

If you can get past the ungrammatical signage and the façade supporting pillar in the doorway this is the chippy that does what chippies do best. Chips and plenty of ‘em. Order half what you think you need and you still can’t finish all of them. You won’t be waiting long either but while you are, there are papers to read on a garden bench and business cards to scan. They once fried one of my mars bars for me in exchange for an unfried one, as a gastronomic experiment, just for a moment I thought I’d died and gone to Glasgow heaven.
I’m fairly local so I call it Jim’s anyway or perhaps Jims’ if I’m in a marketing device mood but never Jims’s.

The family chip shop of choice has undergone much rotation of the years, but for a long time James’s has been the ‘Prescott Family’s Chip Shop of Choice’.
This was mainly due to it having the best chips in Formby, as well as offering ridiculously large portions for the price of a normal portion of chips. Recently however, I feel the quality of the chips has fallen and now a portion of chips is 50% chips and 50% crispy bits from the bottom, which I’m not so keen on. The fish is similarly disappointing, with the batter to fish ratio resulting in an unsatisfactory accompaniment to your chips.
The fishcakes however remain the best in Formby, with the potatoey delights providing an excellent foil to a pint in the nearby Village Inn, as one friend of mine will testify. I’ve never had a chance to sample their Chinese dishes, but the menu is extensive, ensuring even the fussiest diner could find a meal they fancy.
In terms of value for money with the portions you get, James’s is recommended but if you want the best fish and chips, I would go somewhere else.

I don’t know who James is but he makes damn good chips — fluffy, moist and with a little bit of a crispness to the outer layer of potato. If you’re in Formby village and you want some chips rather than the freeze dried yellowy stalks you get at Flames then try James’s. Get a pint in the Cross House beer garden and bring some over with you, it’s only just a couple of minutes away. If anyone at the Cross House asks, I didn’t say that.
The rest of their menu can be a little variable, the beef and green peppers is good but the special fried rice is really not special; unless special means bad, which it doesn’t. The sausages are decent but the fishcakes here are sadly lacking. Most importantly the fish is a bit of a damp squib, well actually it’s probably pollock, but either way it doesn’t really hit the mark.
The chips, though — out of this world. Everything else, ironically, is really only a side order.