Mary Reid

Yes, I had a lovely Christmas and I thoroughly enjoyed doing some 'proper' cooking for various family members over the four days.  So it made my eating experiences yesterday even more excruciating.

We were traveling down to Wales to take my mother and aunt back home.  They are both in their eighties and have mobility problems - that is my only excuse for going into the Little Chef at the Leigh Delamere service station on the M4.  At least we could sit on relatively comfortable chairs and have waiter service.

It began when the waiter told us that they had no cappucino, latte or hot chocolate because the machine had broken down. 

Ian and my aunt ordered soup and were proudly told that it was unadulterated Heinz.  When it arrived the soup was luke warm, but the rolls were, oddly, too hot to handle.

I ordered a jacket potato with chicken tikka and my mother ordered one with chilli con carne.  After a long wait we were told that the tikka and chilli were off because they hadn't defrosted.  Ditto for the lasagne.  But we could have baked beans.....(Heinz, no doubt)

The place filled up and the two waiters could not cope, so perhaps we shouldn't have ordered the pancakes.  When my aunt's arrived the waiter told her that the lemon was off (!) and would she like maple syrup instead.  We had to ask for spoons.

My mother's coffee (sadly not cappucino, which she loves) was bitter and black.  She had to ask for milk.

We left after an hour and a half, having not received a single item that we actually wanted, nor anything that could be remotely described as good food. The only compensation was that we weren't charged for our desserts because we had to wait for so long.

Has anyone ever had a good experience in Little Chef? I certainly don't blame the waiters who were having to take the rap for bad management and poor products.

But surely there is a demand for decent food at service stations?  The only alternatives were Burger King or self service chips-with-everything. I'm not thinking about gourmet restaurants - just good honest pub grub or perhaps a pizza-'n-pasta chain. Why has no-one cracked this yet?