Perhaps because they were listed as pies? ;) I grew up in Dorset with steak pies available, but it'd be an unusual order for sure, they definitely wouldn't sell many, you'd probably waiting a few minutes for them to.. microwave it I suppose.

I can't really think of anything we had that's region specific, mostly just fish and chips, with fish cakes, sausages, pea fritters, and occasionally pies also available.

Definitely no gravy, except at Chinese takeaways, (along with 'curry sauce' and sweet & sour) on greasy fries of course, not chippy chips.

Steak pudding isn't the same thing as steak pie, though.

Where in the north west? They seem a standard to me on the Wirral and in Manchester.

Strange, this was just south of Manc proper

Perhaps when one shop in town adds it to the menu the rest have to follow suit?

The best amalgamation happened down south - a kebab shop diversified into a pizzas, and thus you could get kebab pizza...

Quite possibly, it's interesting how local these things can be. I'd not really even considered that places wouldn't sell battered sausages. It would be almost like going in and finding out that they didn't offer fish battered - it just seemed so standard. I guess while I've lived in a variety of cities I've only been to a fairly small number of chip shops, something I'd not considered until now.