Moments 3: Little Chef

If you are of a certain age (I am that age) then you will have grown up with Little Chef. First opened in 1958 I can remember being a regular visitor to their caravan style original from around 1965 when we moved from Barnsley to Suffolk. Given my grandparents were all still in Barnsley the A1 journey (not dissimilar to my recent journeys) was a regular feature and the Little Chef at Cromwell our regular stop. The caravan was tiny and you sat at the counter and watched the burgers being grilled.

I still remember some years later in the 1970s stopping at Cromwell and seeing the caravan discarded at the back as the new bigger restaurant had taken over.

As I left home and university and had children I used Little Chefs in their prime in the 1980s and 1990s. Expanding rapidly, including taking over Happy Eaters, this was often the preferred stopping point for me and the kids. It was busy and you knew what you could get. It became noticeable however that the food seemed to be mainly mass produced and this reached a point where at one Little Chef my daughter wanted an omelette and they said they did not have any. I had ordered a breakfast with fried eggs so I said if they have eggs for me surely they had eggs for an omelette. They revealed they brought the omelettes in ready done and simply microwaved. My interest in them started to dip.

Their fortunes over the past 15 to 20 years has been patchy. They have been taken over regularly and have successively cut the number of restaurants down. Now I think there are only about 80 and you see many disused Little Chefs, for some reason, never demolished. They have reappeared as indian restaurants, shops, adult shops etc but many lie dormant and rotting. I stopped visiting in recent years except for the odd Olympic Breakfast when travelling to meetings across the country as it was cooked fresh and was a nice break on long journeyes.

I have started to visit one Little Chef on my recent trips to Suffolk. The timing of most of my visits means I can stop for a coffee and a late breakfast. They are though nearly always empty. Gone is the bustle I remember and the fight to get a table and get served. The conditions are best described as decaying as you can see from the outside blip. Everything is just the same but there appears no sustainable business. It has simply outgrown the current market and I just feel it may be doomed. Heston Bloomental tried to bring it some life some years ago but that has faded now. So the picture of the little plumb chef may soon be a thing of the past.

Mum is getting ready for her return home, I just hope it goes ok this week. She is getting excited.