About us

It all started with the hope that selling lobster and crab was easier than catching it!

Back in 2002 Robert Latimer hauled his crab, lobster and langoustine creels up for the last time on the beautiful and secluded shores on the Isle of Luing, west coast Scotland. He journeyed back home to Whitburn, Tyne and Wear and started selling shellfish out of the back of the family garage and petrol station.

To this day he still uses his passion for all things fishy to make sure that only the finest local fish and seafood is landed into our fishmongers’ counter.

We want to make it as easy as possible for our customers to access amazing, fresh, local, sustainable fish and shellfish – after all it’s good for you and helps us support our local fishermen and boats too.

As an independent seafood retailer, we have more than 20 committed and highly trained staff; apprentices, chefs, bookkeepers, admin, filleters, and shop crew to name a few.

Our locally caught fresh fish and seafood can be traced from trawler to plate.

Back in 2008 we thought we’re really good at selling and eating this beautiful seafood, how hard can it be to open a café using it too…

The answer was a lot harder than you would think! But we had a wonderful café, with a scrumptious menu and offered all our visitors some good old-fashioned hospitality.

However, we were aware that with the lack of space the café offered, it did become overcrowded at times which resulted in increased wait times. Along with this, the café did not have enough space to be COVID safe for both staff and customers whilst also remaining viable.

From this, we got our thinking caps on and came up with The Hatch Takeaway, serving delicious ready to eat options from a hatch! We are offering lovely picnic boxes, sandwiches, afternoon teas and breakfasts as well as coffees, cakes, homemade lemonade and freshly squeezed orange juice, all perfectly packaged and ready to enjoy!

The Hatch came with the thought that folk can enjoy our perfectly packaged, ready to go options on our beautiful beach, Cornthwaite Park over the road or along the cliffs towards Souter.

If you still fancy a sit down, we have an outdoor seating area overlooking the beach; the perfect plaice for dolphin spotting!

November 2022 ~ Indoor Seating area opened, which is lovely and snug.