The viability of the roadside dining market
Little Chef was among the heavyweights in the roadside dining niche before its 2018 extinction. Now, Loungers has come out with a game plan to reinvigorate this sector, but are people ready to leave their fast-food and QSRs behind?
Roadside dining had its heyday some 50 years ago and when Little Chef, one of Britain’s most iconic and successful diner chains became defunct in 2018, it seemed like the extinction of the UK’s tenuous motor dining culture was finally complete.
Four years on, and the nationwide operator Loungers of all day café-bars and restaurants under the Lounge and Cosy Club brands, has unveiled plans to dip its toe in the roadside dining niche by adding an additional outlet called Brightside. According to the operator, it sees “great potential” in reinvigorating the roadside dining sector in the UK, as it also believes it has become “tired and uninspiring”.
Little Chef was fundamentally a creature from the past. Started in 1958 by Sam Alper, the chain was heavily inspired by American diners, though Alper tweaked the model ever so slightly by offering traditional English comfort food with a diner twist to ensure its popularity with a UK audience.
Nobody can deny that this chain was successful; at its peak in the 1970s, Little Chef experienced its most ambitious expansion ever, as well as the opening of most of its locations. Before anyone knew, the chain was operating 439 restaurants at the height of its popularity.
It’s not unheard of for rapid expansion to prove unsustainable in the long term, and plenty of brands have been known to make that mistake. A fairly recent example is Byron Burger which in the mid-2010s grew to 51 locations since its opening in 2007. Since experiencing a close brush with administration and more recently trying to find new investors, the company has shrunk down to 21 locations and is yet to relive its heyday.
On the topic of rapid expansion, Loungers strategy with the launch of Brightside is far more tempered, permitting itself to opening just three sites – the first to be on the A38 in South Exeter in February 2023 and the other two to follow on the A303 near Honiton, and on the A38 near Saltash, in the spring.
The real downfall of Little Chef came in the early 2000s when it noticed a subtle yet palpable decline in the amount of people coming in to eat. Josh Wood, the director of the social events app Bloc, explained that some of the factors that lead to the extinction of old roadside dining chains – not just Little Chef – include increased competition from fast food chains and casual dining restaurants paired with a decline in travel due to recession and the proliferation of delivery services like Grubhub and DoorDash.
After taking into account Loungers’ proposition for brand new motor dining chain Brightside, Wood also commended the brand’s “casual, comfortable environment”, saying their Lounge and Cosy Club locations are quickly becoming favourite spots for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Given what he knows about the company’s track record, he said: “I think it could be the company that revives the curbside food market. Loungers’ menus offer something for everyone and with prices that won’t break the bank, it is the perfect place to visit whether you’re on a budget or looking for a relaxing meal out.
“I think Loungers’ slow paced dining experiences will work on the road due to the rise in electric vehicle sales,” he continued, taking into account the presence of electric car charging stations and solar panels in Lounger’s vision of Brightside. “People will need to stop off for a longer period of time to charge their cars.”
Despite the lack of big-brand players in the roadside dining market, there are some independent restaurants that have tried to bring their own personal touch. Sarah Heward, the founder and owner of The Real Food Café in Tyndrum, Scotland, bought her café and set up business in 2005. The building, funnily enough, was a derelict Little Chef, yet now is an “award winning” and “hugely popular” busy roadside diner.
Another example of a roadside diner done right is Will Macpherson’s Angus Grill and Larder, a new roadside dining establishment located just outside Dundee. Macpherson explained that the venue provides “delicious local produce at reasonable prices”, and that it has become a much-loved stop for a lot of people, particularly with families, business travellers and drivers who are all making full use of their facilities. The venue even boasts hand-painted murals and a fenced-in dog exercise area.
“Some people don’t think there’s a place for this kind of ‘break your journey up, sit down for 45 minutes, and have a meal’, and I just don’t believe that,” said Alex Reilly, co-founder and chairman of Loungers, when asked what excites him the most about this project. “Because with more electric cars on the road, people are going to need to consider how and when they stop.”
Reilly is correct; independent diners like those owned by Heward and Macpherson have benefitted from the demand that Loungers hopes Brightside will revive, and their popularity shows that plenty of travellers are keen to ‘break up’ their journeys by having a proper sit-down meal.
Besides wanting to revive the nostalgia factor of roadside dining, like its other two chain restaurants, Loungers has pin-pointed the need for brand recognition within motor dining, like Little Chef and Happy Eater used to have, with the foresight to anticipate how people may choose to eat when travelling in an electric car that will need more time to charge.
