Stone Church Fish-and-Chips Shop

Should you feel a divine call, a baptismal awakening, while you bite into the crisp breading of a fried barramundi at Spirou Seafood and Salad, giving in to the pleasure of buttery, tender white flesh dipped in a zingy tartar sauce, don’t be alarmed. It could be that your box of fried seafood and french fries is a crumb-coated blessing. Or, it could well be the ambient holiness of your dining establishment, for this popular South Australian fish-and-chip shop is housed in Port Pirie’s oldest stone church.

Outside the main entrance, instead of Bible study times on a church sign, a banner advertises the lunch specials.

The proprietors, Kevin and Kim Spirou, bought the building and originally converted it into a location of Barnacle Bill’s, an Australian fish-and-chips franchise. The Port Pirie location was formerly a Congregational church, which opened its doors in 1879. After shutting its doors around 1991, the church lay abandoned, gathering dust for five years, and was about to be razed to the ground when the Spirous bought it. The Spirous now like to boast that many of their customers once got married in the same space.

The pulpit is now a deep-frying counter, the pews have been replaced by tables and a salad bar, and one of the side aisles accommodates refrigerators for the restaurant’s beverages. But the faithful still come to this sacred seafood space. There was some initial concern among locals about turning a longstanding religious institution into a restaurant, but the critics soon realized that this was the only way to save the building, which would otherwise have been torn down.

As for the seafood, saying that it’s good is just preaching to the choir.