Little Chef

Little Chef
38 more photos in the gallery
Locations:	174 roadside restaurants
Associated names:	Coffee Tempo!, Travelodge
Introduced:	1958
Predecessors:	Happy Eater, AJ's, Little Chef Lodge, Little Chef Express
Successors:	Red Hen, Costa Coffee, Burger King, Metzo Restaurant
Website: littlechef.co.uk Facebook Page

What Little Chef are most famous for: abandoned restaurants

Little Chef was once the biggest of all Britain's roadside names, catering for drivers on the move. This excitement has dwindled over the years, and now many of their restaurants are quiet and short of money.

History

It was started in 1958 by Sam Alper - the man responsible for Sprite Touring caravans - in Reading in a small diner-style caravan. It has changed ownership many times with Gardner Merchant, Trusthouse Forte, Granada, Compass Catering, Permira of Canada, The People's Restaurant Company and is now owned by Venture Capital Firm R Capital. At the height of its popularity it boasted 435 branches, including 5 in the Republic of Ireland. Their famous chef logo is called Charlie or "Fat Charlie" by some people - attempts to replace him with a thinner design are always followed by controversy. However, in 2009 Charlie was updated with a new, higher quality image as part of the Blumenthal refurbishment, and his neckerchief was replaced by a proper chef's jacket.

During the '70s Forte branded their Little Chefs with motels as Little Chef Lodge, which then became "Forte Travelodges". Little Chef also featured in many of Forte's Welcome Break service areas. The most distinctive Little Chef is the swooping-roofed branch at Markham Moor South on the A1, designed by Lincolnshire architect Sam Scorer.

Little Chef had a rival, Happy Eater, which was bought by Forte in 1986 from imperial Tobacco, and the old directors went on to form AJ's.

In the 1990s Granada (now Moto) owned Little Chef, Happy Eater and Travelodge, as well as Trusthouse Forte and its chain of motorway services, Welcome Break. Granada decided to convert all the remaining Happy Eaters to Little Chefs as they earnt more money, as well as building Little Chefs at most of their motorway services. They also continued to build small services consisting of only a Little Chef and a Travelodge across the a-road network. In 1998, Granada acquired the entire AJ's brand and converted them to Little Chefs for the same reason.

When Forte owned Little Chef, they devised a takeaway restaurant called "Little Chef Express", with the first one opening up at Markham Moor north(A1)as an add on to the main Little Chef. It was intended as a rival to the growing number of fast food chains that were springing up on the roadside and Forte's plan was to rebrand many Happy Eater restaurants as Little Chef Express self-service restaurants in 1995. However only 5 Little Chef Expresses ever made it to the roadside as Burger King was becoming the preferred fast food brand of little Chef's new owners, Granada. Little Chef Express was developed as a "food court" brand in later years though by Compass, who owned Little Chef in the early part of the "noughties" and it featured in some shopping centres, airports and even the Eurotunnel terminal as well as having a stall in many of Granada's "Fresh Express" self service restaurants. Today though, the brand is no more.

Although Little Chef's main market is the UK they have appeared in other countries. In the 1970s there were 2 in France, both of which closed by 1976. In the 1992/3 two sites were opened in the Republic on Ireland with 3 more following between 1996/7 and 2001/2. In 2005 Little Chef and Travelodge in Ireland were sold off to new operators and the Little Chefs rebranded. The two Dublin ones became "Metzo" restaurants and the 3 others became Eddie Rockets Diners. Little Chefs next foray was into Spain with 3 branches opened by 1994/5 with more planned. It is believed that these have now disappeared too it is unclear when.

Little Chef Today

Today Moto, Trusthouse Forte, Welcome Break and Little Chef and Travelodge have all gone separate ways, and Moto got to keep their Little Chef outlets as they were franchised, but Welcome Break's weren't. As a result of this, Welcome Break had to remove all their Little Chefs and they chose to re-brand them as Red Hen.

Rather ironically, after Granada claimed that they earnt more money and later left them, Little Chef are facing their own financial problems. There are no more Little Chefs at 'proper' motorway services, the last one to close was the one at Toddington. All of this has had a dramatic effect on numbers with Little Chef now down to 175 restaurants as of October 2009. However, Chief Executive Ian Peglar has revealed the company is back in profit and he has aspirations to increase the number of sites back to 200 over the next few years.

Whether you like them or not, Little Chefs have become a cultural icon. The 'League of Gentleman' once suggested, "if God had intended us to walk everywhere, he wouldn't have invented Little Chef". On Bill Bailey's stand-up tour 'Part Troll', he listed a series of negative points about modern Britain and then said "on the plus side we've got Little Chefs, which were built many years ago on ley lines and then the roads came in and connected them all up." In 'Mock the Week', Frankie Boyle suggested a road sign reading 'Warning: Little Chef, one mile'.

Heston Blumenthal

Right now the most famous Little Chef is the one at Popham on the A303 westbound, which was redesigned by Heston Blumenthal and featured in a three-hour television documentary titled 'Big Chef Takes on Little Chef' in January 2009. As well as an improved menu, the restaurant was thoroughly refurbished and included scented and singing toilets. The new restaurant was very popular with reports of traffic queueing onto the road in order to visit it, and after a long while Little Chef announced that the design will be rolled out to most of its restaurants.

Summer 2009 saw York (A64) and Kettering westbound (A14) upgraded to the same model and 5 more sites are due to follow shortly. In August, Popham made it into the Good Food Guide, a first for a roadside eatery.

In October a follow-up episode titled 'Did Heston Change Little Chef' took a look at Popham and its successes, as well as rectifying problems which had occurred following supply issues. During the show, Heston encouraged Little Chef executive Ian Pegler to improve the old menu at the same time.

Coffee Tempo!

Little Chef used to be joined by Cafe Nescafe, later Burger King. Now they tend to be joined by Coffee Tempo!, a small 'grab and go' coffee shop. introduced in 2005.

Locations and Former Sites

Full details: Little Chef locations

Little Chef no longer operate at any motorway services, but two of their restaurants (Crewe and Oldbury) are at services next to motorways.

Comments and Reviews

Showing the most recent responses only: for the full thread and the ability to edit your own posts, you need to view the topic in the forums.
Author: Message: Anonymous We have been using little chef since children were little and they are now grown adults with their own children. It would be a shame to loose Little Chef. We try to stay in areas where we know there is one. Staff always been pleasing and helpful, meals always good and lovely food. When welcome break took over things went haywire and choices of food altered to our distate but we still look for the signs. Posted: 01 Aug 2010, 12:56 Michel I hope that Little Chef stays around the UK and is supported by the travelling public. Most now serve reasonable sized meals (especially the Olympic breakfast!) at affordable prices. I also note that they will also serve take away snacks for the very fast food junkies! My wife and I have been using Little Chef restaurants all over for most of their UK history. We ceased calling for a time when the meals were over priced for their size, the quality went down hill and service was slow and reastaurants no longer kept clean. (That may be why they became unprofitable?) But they have surged back and so far, seem to be well worth visiting again. Keep the standard up and value for money and we will continue to use Little Chef restaurants. Posted: 18 Jan 2010, 02:50 picky little chef, where else can you get a substantial meal at a reasonable price, why did they go from the motorway services, give me their food rather than the food other motorway services throw at you and charge an arm and a leg. Posted: 28 Oct 2009, 19:20 Anonymous there was a little chef at cardiff gate before welcome break tookover Posted: 19 Apr 2009, 01:37 Roadhog I think Little Chef is going. Any brand which isn't fast food don't seem to be doing well off the road. Even Little Chefs that aren't off the motorway are closing. Posted: 05 Aug 2006, 11:28 Ziathon Rumour has it that Little Chef wont be a Moto brand for much longer. I know stafford norths little chef is closing in October and Hilton Parks wont be far behind. They are being replaced by a coffee bar. More info as it becomes avalible Posted: 04 Aug 2006, 22:14 Admin Post your comments and reviews on Little Chef here, or you can return to Little Chef. Posted: 24 Feb 2006, 19:32
Showing the most recent responses only: for the full thread and the ability to edit your own posts, you need to view the topic in the forums.