Burntisland's Burger Island to open new branch on High Street

Burger Island has found so much success that they're opening another outlet on the High Street.

A long-standing Fife business is to open a new branch on Burntisland High Street, after doing so well in recent months that they’re now able to expand.

The Burger Island kiosk has been at the corner of Burntisland Links for 29 years, serving mainly seasonal visitors who arrive for the shows, but after making a few changes to the business, the owners have seen enough success to open a second outlet.

Earlier this year when the Burntisland shows were cancelled, Raina and Stewart Miller decided to upgrade their usual fast food offering, by adding a range of specials and making deliveries to customers.

Now they’re refurbishing premises on Scotland’s best High Street in the hope of opening in the next few months.

It means Burger Island will have a presence in Burntisland all year round, even after the Links kiosk closes for winter.

Raina said that while the pandemic made things difficult, it also presented an opportunity to upgrade.

"I’ve had this 29 years,” she said. “People always just associated it with being part of the shows. Without the shows we realised we’d have to feed the people of the town because there wouldn’t be as many visitors. So we had to change the food and try different ideas as we had more time on our hands.”

While the traditional menu of hotdogs and candyfloss suited the shows, the new menu makes the most of some new specials, like the all-day breakfast wrap, the salt-and-pepper-chicken stack, messy fries, or the pizza burger.

Stewart said: "We’ve altered the menu, we needed to diversify because of the pandemic. All our meat now comes from Tom Courts the Butcher, which is a good name.

"People do travel that wee bit further for a good bit of food. We have people coming as far as Stirling, Bathgate and Dundee.”

Raina said: "We’d normally have shut at this time of year but with the JustEat we have a customer base now. That’s where the shop idea came from; people were messaging us saying they hope we don’t shut down for the winter because they really like what we’re doing.

“They’ve seen us online as we’ve been building up our social media and interacting with people. It’s amazing the number of people who come and ask ‘Are you new here? How long have you been here?’ I tell them ‘29 years’."

But it’s not just the visitors from further afield that have taken an interest in the new direction.

Stewart said: “There’s a guy who lives in town that knew we were here but never bought anything until we went on JustEat – now he gets a delivery most days.”

Raina added: “We’re looking forward to opening the new shop. We just want to thank all our customers who have supported us and made everything possible.”

Meanwhile, as Stewart and Raina have recently picked up the keys, work continues to get the new takeaway ready, opposite the Silver Tassie pub, with a view to opening before Christmas.