Old Fashioned Truck Stops

[Tengu]

That havent been tarted up.

Yesterday went to the Horseshoe Cafe at the junction of the A90/B953 at Inchture.

Very rapid service, good food and decent price.

But most of these places...."Oh, it used to be a great place to eat but they then modernised it for the trendy crowd"

(As told to me by a little old lady who is a foodie, and not too proud to eat at a Greasy Spoon...)

 

[Chris]

Couple up this neck of the woods which always have lorries parked up. Must have avoided the Truckstop Gentrification.

 

[Paul_B]

There is one high up on the A66, or used to be with a huge carpark. Is that still open or closed years ago?

I think France does this better. There is a history of plat du jour there at legally fixed and cheap prices. Two courses and a drink included for probably less than the cost of a full english. My parents used to tour France for long holidays after retiring. Their advice was when driving into a new town at lunchtime you drive around until you see a lot of trade vans parked at a bar, restaurant or cafe and that is where you should go for your dish of the day. It has always worked for them! I mean people who work hard physically often know where to get the best food I reckon in France and probably the UK too.

 

[Chris]

I seem to recall their truck stops also serve wine.

I love how unapologetically French the French are. They don’t mess about with their food and drink.

 

[ijohnson]

The one I immediately thought of as soon as I read the title was Stracathro Services, just a bit further up the road from the one you mention. Again always popular with truckers.

 

[Toddy]

I have to confess that though I have used both the Inchture and Strathcaro services/cafes, I am no fan.

The food is substantial, the welcome is real, the prices are good, but the smell of fried food that clings to my skin, clothes and hair for hours afterwards puts me right off.

They're both sited in cold spots, they're trying to keep the heat in, I get it, but they need to vent more, they really do.

Funny how many truck stops are like that though.

 

[haptalaon]

I seem to recall their truck stops also serve wine.

I love how unapologetically French the French are. They don’t mess about with their food and drink.

Disney parks do not serve alcohol as a rule but when they opened Eurodisney they were told quite flatly that would not fly in Paris XD

 

[bobnewboy]

My most local place is Morgan’s Transport Cafe, on the A38 at Burlescombe, not far from the M5 (perhaps a mile?), and on the Somerset/Devon border. It’s only open until about 1.30 in the afternoon, but sells the usual fare and is a good place for a bacon butty and a cuppa if I’ve been out early on the bike.

There is also a decent butty wagon at Total Triumph on the A38 at Bradford-on-Tone. Nearly opposite Sheppy’s Cider (but that’s a bit posh/expensive for me ). The breakfast rolls there are a good setup for a summer day’s motorcycling.

The only other place I visit would be Max’s Cafe at Turks Head Lane, Honiton, just off the A30. There’s a more varied selection available there but again they stop serving food indoors at about 2.00pm. You can still get something to take away until 3.00pm though.

 

[haptalaon]

I wish i could remember where we were, but we found a magnificent - extremely gentrified - motorway service station built like a longbarrow with drystone walling, a grass roof, lots of wood inside and all the food was from local farms, complete with a fancy duck pond.

Honestly, I vibed. Motorway driving is stressful & I think it's a good idea to make rest spots actually restful.

 

[British Red]

Not so much truck stops but good old fashioned Caffs selling the same type of food are, thankfully, plentiful in South Lincolnshire.

I recall when we came here I bought 2 mahoosive full English, 2 pots of tea, two plates of bread & butter in a fab cafe. Formica table with vinyl chairs, waitresses in tabards. Like something from the 50s It was awesome . I had change from ten quid for both meals .

They used to do a big plate of stuff like cottage pie & veg with tea for £3.99. it was packed with pensioners!

There is a place for plain, wholesome, plentiful food. Lincolnshire is that place.

 

[Toddy]

I wish i could remember where we were, but we found a magnificent - extremely gentrified - motorway service station built like a longbarrow with drystone walling, a grass roof, lots of wood inside and all the food was from local farms, complete with a fancy duck pond.

Honestly, I vibed. Motorway driving is stressful & I think it's a good idea to make rest spots actually restful.

That sounds like Tebay.

Tebay Services Farmshop and Kitchen | M6 Cumbria

We are a motorway services business owned by a Cumbrian farming family. We cook real food and prize local produce, like generations of farmers before us.

www.tebayservices.com

 

[Paul_B]

I wish i could remember where we were, but we found a magnificent - extremely gentrified - motorway service station built like a longbarrow with drystone walling, a grass roof, lots of wood inside and all the food was from local farms, complete with a fancy duck pond.

Honestly, I vibed. Motorway driving is stressful & I think it's a good idea to make rest spots actually restful.

There is something like that at the one run by a farm in Cumbria, Tebay services. They own two near there on each side of the M6. They also own one on IIRC the M5 down somewhere near Herefordshire way IIRC. They built that one and I think it also matches your description a bit. The one on the southbound M6 TEbay area sounds most like the one you mentioned.

It is good and is especially good in that it was taken over so the farmer who bought the services could sell their own meat cutting out the middleman in the butchers. They since sourced so many other local producers of so many foods. Now they buy mostly from Yorkshire, Cumbria and Lancashire but since the southern one was opened they also stock local to that area too now. IIRC there is a good cured meat maker from that area that is sold in all 3 service stations they now operate.

The services ended up making a lot more money for the family than the actual farming and meat production but they still run a farm or two and use other local farmers for stock too. It is worth a tidy penny now I think. it made them a lot.

There is a farm in north Lancashire near Carnfroth M6 junction That diversified by building a little kind of shopping place. They got in with a property developer to do it and now the guy is loaded too. There are some very entreprenuerial farmers around these days!!

 

[Tengu]

Probably Tebay.

 

[Pattree]

Tebay or Gloucester.

I just wish they’d keep their “artisan” bread somewhere where it isn’t fingered and coughed over by passing customers.

It’s hardly a truck stop though. One of the more expensive service stations.

I used to buy breakfast there when I had a gig at the Livingston MOTEC.

Edited to add:
Some service stations do have truck stops round the back. No idea how you qualify to use them.

 

[fielder1963]

Try the famous Midway Truckstop at Prees Heath near Whitchurch Shropshire.

 

[Keith_Beef]

There is one high up on the A66, or used to be with a huge carpark. Is that still open or closed years ago?

I think France does this better. There is a history of plat du jour there at legally fixed and cheap prices. Two courses and a drink included for probably less than the cost of a full english. My parents used to tour France for long holidays after retiring. Their advice was when driving into a new town at lunchtime you drive around until you see a lot of trade vans parked at a bar, restaurant or cafe and that is where you should go for your dish of the day. It has always worked for them! I mean people who work hard physically often know where to get the best food I reckon in France and probably the UK too.

I don't think that there is a legally fixed price for the plat du jour; if there ever was one, it would probably have been abandoned at the same time as the price control on bread, 1 January 1987 (Ordonnance n° 86-1243 du 1 décembre 1986). There are still requirements for displaying, outside the restaurant, prices (in type no smaller than 1.5cm vertically) of a selection of foods and drinks.

But we still have the Relais Routiers. I've not been able to work out how it is structured, but it seems to be a trademark that an independent restaurant can use if it adheres to a charter requiring the provision of certain kinds of food and services and pays an annual fee for trademark use and for listing in an annual directory. Wikipedia has quite a brief article in French, and an even briefer one in English.

Many are not usually suited to HGV drivers, though: most of them have limited parking and many are in small towns with no off-street parking at all.

I've eaten in only a few; I could probably count them on the fingers of one hand.

 

[Damascus]

Does anyone know if the Blue n White cafe on the A20 is still there, been a few years since in was in Ashford Kent, a regular stop on route to Dover docks, that was a good old style truck stop!

 

[oldtimer]

I don't think that there is a legally fixed price for the plat du jour; if there ever was one, it would probably have been abandoned at the same time as the price control on bread, 1 January 1987 (Ordonnance n° 86-1243 du 1 décembre 1986). There are still requirements for displaying, outside the restaurant, prices (in type no smaller than 1.5cm vertically) of a selection of foods and drinks.

But we still have the Relais Routiers. I've not been able to work out how it is structured, but it seems to be a trademark that an independent restaurant can use if it adheres to a charter requiring the provision of certain kinds of food and services and pays an annual fee for trademark use and for listing in an annual directory. Wikipedia has quite a brief article in French, and an even briefer one in English.

They are not usually suited to HGV drivers, though: most of them have limited parking and many are in small towns with no off-street parking at all.

I've eaten in only a few; I could probably count them on the fingers of one hand.

Les Routiers (Lorry Drivers) Relais Routiers (truck stops), started between the wars when journalists published a list of truck stops. Post ww2, restaurants on the lists could be taken off if their standards and prices were not good enough. In the mid 1960s, more ordinary travellers than lorry drivers were using them and a ranking system was introduced. The expansion of French autoroutes had the same effect as motorways in the UK : ubiquitous, soulless service stations that killed off the transport cafes run by families.

 

[Pattree]

Prees is an interesting place. In the early days of motoring/touring before motorways it was half way to everywhere and often an overnight stop. There were all sorts of accommodation from the Witchball Hotel at four stars, The Raven, Little Chef, a truck stop and a garage.

You can always tell somewhere that does a good breakfast. Come Easter the huge car park at Prees is full of bikes.

 

[GreyCat]

That sounds like Tebay.

Tebay Services Farmshop and Kitchen | M6 Cumbria

We are a motorway services business owned by a Cumbrian farming family. We cook real food and prize local produce, like generations of farmers before us.

www.tebayservices.com

Description sounds more like Gloucester services on the M5 than Tebay on the M6. Gloucester is indeed buried in the hill wereas Tebay is not, although Tebay n-bound has a large duck pond and a good view of the West Coast Main Line railway.

Both owned by the same outfit. They also have the Rheged centre near Penrith (again earth-sheltered) and have taken over Cairn Lodge services on the M74.

They're OK, some decent stuff but very pricey, and also a lot of over-priced stuff for the "cultured" tourists....

They have some good policies like using local suppliers and paying locals who work there a proper living wage. As motorway service stations go, they are at the premier end of the spectrum and useful to know is that at Gloucester services you get 3 hours free parking rather than the usual 2 hours.

GC