Thursday, 07 October 2010 07:55 Georgina Ingham

Roadside eateries have quite a bad reputation here in the UK. Mention stopping in a motorway service station and you’re frequently met with looks of shock, if not pure horror.

Why? Well unlike my experience of the classic roadside American diner the UK service station is a place of remorseless functionality, lacking in personality or value for money. It is hardly difficult to comprehend why in a recent study car hire agency Europcar found that 95 percent of UK motorists believe the choice, price and quality of roadside food is unacceptable and a massive 80 percent of those surveyed said they’d rather go hungry than stop to eat.

Service stations didn’t always have such negative connotations though. Travel back in time to the 1960s and the motorway was a new and exciting way to travel. The first service station, Watford Gap, sold sandwiches out of hastily erected sheds from the day the M1 opened on November 2, 1959. However, the service stations that followed sought to fully exploit the excitement of speedy long distance travel and turned the humble service station into a more complete dining experience, with restaurants fashioned in a style akin to the American diners of the time. At some service stations, smart ladies in air hostess style uniforms greeted motorists.

The original idea of fine dining at the motorway services did not continue much past the sixties. The glamour associated with the motorway disappeared quickly.

Now, they are certainly not food destinations. Roy Harper sang about Watford Gap Services in 1977, the opening verse says it all:

Just about a mile from where the motorways all merge
You can view the national edifice, a monumental splurge
It'’s the lonesome traveler's rotgut or bacteria's revenge
The great plastic spectacular descendant of Stonehenge
And the people come to worship on their death-defying wheels
Fancy-dressed as shovels for their death-defying meals”

Little seems to have changed. Tom Parker-Bowles says service stations serve “British food at its very worst” and commenters on the Motorway Services website spout about “the worst cooked breakfast I have ever had”, “ripoff prices” and staff “with the charisma of a dead fish”.

This is certainly nothing like the freshly cooked to order, succulent, home-style food served in the US Diners I have experienced, and as for the notion that coffee cups are refilled as required at no extra cost, well that certainly didn’t find it’s way in to the UK service station.

Alternatively, you could take your chances with another UK stalwart, Little Chef, but things don’t exactly look up with Tiffanie Darke referring to it as the “scourge of the greasy fry-up (not in a good way) and grubby roadside caff par excellence”. This sentiment is echoed by Tony Naylor who describes the place as “worn, grey and depressing”.

Comments from some of Little Chef’s customers don’t fare much better, “food took ages to arrive, but looked like it had been cooked half an hour ago” and “you only stop here when desperate.” Even Ian Pegler, Little Chef’s Managing Director admitted that the eatery was “in a time warp”.

Heston Blumenthal', whose restaurant The Fat Duck has been voted the best in the world, did attempt to overhaul the Little Chef experience, so far only three branches have seen changes made, but from the sounds of it they have been very successful indeed - with the prototype branch, Popham, featuring in The Good Food Guide. Here’s hoping the ‘scheme’ is rolled out countrywide in the near future.

It's not all bad though. Unlike the franchised and faceless Little Chef, Tibshelf and Knutsford, Britain’s only independently owned service station Tebay has, since 1972, eschewed the likes of Burger King and Costa, providing cake and coffee shops, a butcher's counter and outdoor barbecues. Recently the company that runs Tebay, was granted planning permission for a second motorway service area in Gloucestershire.

The Guild of Food Writers (Britain's leading organisation of writers and broadcasters on all matters relating to food) has also teemed up with Europcar to develop a Roadside Gastro Guide with the aim of helping motorists to find outstanding food just a short detour from the main roads. The twenty establishments included are, unlike the standard service station, full of individualism, offer friendly service and fresh, locally sourced produce.

Hopefully this is a sign of better things to come for the UK roadside food experience.