Taunton Deane

Taunton Deane
RoadChef
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Road:	M5 between J25 and J26
Address:	Taunton Deane Motorway Services Area M5 Trull Taunton Somerset TA3 7PF
Telephone number:	01823 271111
Signposted from the road?	Yes
Opened:	1976
Grid reference:	ST195203
Services type:	Two sites located between junctions, connected by a pedestrian footbridge.
Visit Taunton Deane/RoadChef's official website

A large but crammed service area on the M5 which can get very busy during holiday periods.

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Facilities

General: BT Openzone, Picnic Tables, Children's Play Area, Meeting Room, Traffic Information
Restaurants: RestBite, The Burger Company, Costa Coffee
Shops: WH Smith
Fuel: Shell (pump types unknown)
Motel: Premier Inn^{[book rooms]}

Parking Prices

First two hours free for all vehicles, after which HGVs must pay £16, or £18 to include a £10 food voucher.

Further information is not available, please update this if you know.

Trivia

Until recently the services provided Coffee Republic rather than Costa Coffee. It also used to offer Dr Beak's Chicken.

The motel's website actually suggests Sedgemoor services as a place to visit, under 'tourist information'.

It has been suggested that the northbound services were built at a different date to the southbound ones, and possibly by different companies.

Survey Results

In September 2008, the services were one of two places to be rated 0 stars by Taunton Deane Council's food safety team. In October they were rated again and this time the service station got two stars and the Wimpy three, and in December the Costa Coffee and Wimpy units were both rated five starts - a rating given only to places with excellent hygiene and where they're very confident in the management.

In 2006, Holiday Which? graded the services at 3/5.

Alternatives

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 I would like to leave a comment for the costa coffee customer who clearly doesn't have a life...Or to that point ever done a days work in any kind of catering industry. It is the customers like yourself that ruin my day. Costa staff work incredibly hard for little pay and very often no rest. They are the target of abuse from the general public all day and generally get treated like dirt. I can only be thankful that i do not work in a service station costa where I bet the abuse is endless from fed up drivers. I would like to say a big thank you to all the customers who take the time to be polite and friendly. The the rest of the miserable customers, do not expect to get a nice coffee if you act and behaviour in a rude manner towards the staff. At the end of the day IT'S JUST MILK! Posted: 01 Sep 2010, 21:33 Costa Worker Thankyou, for once a customer that understands!!! Posted: 08 Jul 2010, 10:15 Anonymous Unfortunately it is my experience that Costa Coffee is a wholly unsuitable brand for a service station. The time involved in making a fresh cup of coffee mean that long queues are a natural result, no matter how many staff are employed. You can only get so many behind a counter after all! If you are a customer and you want a fresh cup of coffee then I am afraid that the penalty is that you have to wait for it! Being rude about the staff, who do work hard under a lot of pressure is not going to make the blindest bit of difference! Just a small reality check Posted: 02 Jul 2010, 11:41 Costa Worker I have worked at Costa Coffee for almost a year and eveything about staffing shortages no breaks is true as i experience this, i have on many occasions not taken a break during my 9 hour shift due to feeling sorry for customers!! We are on are feet non stop, customers also want fast service and clean tables but when its the summer and we are understaffed it is hard and customers cant have it either way, you either want clean tables and slow service or fast service and some dirty tables!! and no offence but why wud we cater for crows?? there not pets there pests and u telling me that where ever ur from u have never seen a pest feastin on remainders of food??? and it would also be nice for the rude customers to at least say please and thankyou instead of throwing money at us or shouting at us if we do something wrong we are all human and do try are best we are not pieces of dog dirt either!!!!!!!!! Posted: 29 Jun 2010, 20:35 Anonymous This is a very good service station which is connected by a bridge to the other side. 2 for £10 on hot food in the restaurant is easily best value on the motorway. Stop here and avoid the Moto services either side which are a rip off! Posted: 15 Jun 2010, 13:09 Coffee customer I visited the services yesterday and on the whole found them good until however I visited Costa Coffee. The 3 staff behind the till were slow and unintersted in the large que of customers stretching out of the main doors! This site talks of the staff not getting enough breaks, from what I witnessed yesterday the costa staff are always on a break. I will not be using it again. Posted: 06 Jun 2010, 23:34 Dan I have just visited this service station and was very disappointed. After Reading previous reviews I am disappointed that people have the nerve to comment on staff having longer and more breaks. Whilst on this visit I got served the wrong food, did not have access to the local amenties as in the fruit machines and there was no visable queuing area in the shop. We also witnessed a crow stealing someone snafwich which shows to me the local species are not cared or catered for. I think before people comment on the staffs working paterns they should think of this more holisticlly Posted: 05 Apr 2010, 13:11 Anonymous Hi i agree with this post as i now someone who works there it is a shame but i dont think any of the road chef managment will see this Posted: 05 Apr 2009, 10:06 Anonymous It is a great shame to here from members of staff that are employed at Road Chef that the treatment they receive regarding their so called breaks- they have to work very hard and spend long hours on their feet, some of them covering extra shifts because management have not sorted the staffing correctly-they even if it is busy which you can imagine over the Bank Holiday period can be exceptionaly hectic, that they don't even get a chance to even have a break! this seems to be "custom and practice" so I feel as a visitor that your staff should have regular rest periods,and treated with respect. Posted: 25 Sep 2008, 18:30 Admin Post your comments and reviews for Taunton Deane here, or you can return to Taunton Deane. Posted: 08 Jan 2006, 12:28
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.

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