Wiktionary
whelk stall
n. (context British colloquial slang English) A small enterprise which is very simple to run.
Usage examples of "whelk stall".
Was I ever going to meet a wizard with the sense to run a whelk stall?
It all ticked over extremely peacefully and efficiently, demonstrating once again that compared to the Patrician of Ankh, Machiavelli could not have run a whelk stall.
Some really brainy people are exceptionally silly, some too are exceptionally unreceptive to unfamiliar ideas, and there are loads of men and women with good academic degrees who, as the saying goes, couldn't even run a whelk stall!