The Camberley branch was a former Little Chef restaurant located on the A30 near Camberley, Surrey.
Address and Onsite Information[]
ADDRESS: A30 London Road, Camberley, Surrey, GU15 3UF
ONSITE FACILITIES: Kwik Fit, Mister Clean Car Wash
History[]
Opened in December 1961, the Little Chef at Camberley was something of a landmark site. Camberley is reputed to be Little Chef's second site, following the success of the Reading branch. More noteworthy though is its status as site 001 on the Little Chef motorist map in 1976 when then owners Forte decided to number the sites from oldest to newest. This meant that kids, who were handed the Little Chef map to keep them quiet and asked to find 001 got to know Camberley pretty well.
Previously, sites had been numbered from north to south and before that by road, starting with A1 upwards. However, if a new site was added on these systems, something which happened a lot in the 70s, this meant that, usually, most sites would have to be renumbered so the new site could appear in the right order. With oldest to newest this problem was avoided and any subsequent closures were just removed from the map without any numbering changes. By 1976, the original Reading Little Chef had closed meaning that Camberley was the oldest and it kept the number 001 all the way until closure. After closure, Alwalton was given the baton, and managed to stay open all the way up to the chain's demise in January 2018.
Today a Kwik Fit and car wash stand on the site of the Camberley Little Chef.