The Chicklade branch was a former Little Chef restaurant located on the A303 in Chicklade near Salisbury, Wiltshire.
Address and Onsite Facilities[]
ADDRESS: A303, Chicklade, Salisbury, Wiltshire, SP3 5ST
ONSITE FACILITIES: Sol Bakery & Cafe
History[]
The Little Chef first opened around 1970 in a small white building adjoining a petrol station. In fact, some of its windows looked right into the forecourt. Its slightly elevated position also helped to make it more visible from the road and give diners a good people-watching spot.
A small but busy branch, the Little Chef was a mere two and a half miles east of the West Knoyle branch. Both branches opened around the same time with Chicklade to the north of the road and West Knoyle to the south, unusual for a road which was not dual carriageway. However, given how long both branches survived for, this was obviously a good decision.
In 2012, then owners R Capital announced that they were going to close 67 underperforming branches and again it looked like Chicklade and West Knoyle had managed to escape. However, after the initial 67, some more closures were announced in September 2012 and this time Chicklade didn't escape. It closed soon after.
The restaurant was reopened in 2013 under the Eat and Go brand. This is not the first Little Chef to do so with Weston on the Green South also becoming an Eat and Go.
In July 2017, the Eat & Go was badly damaged in a large fire, which closed the A303 temporarily and reduced the building to a shell. However, this still wasn't the end for the branch as in Spring 2019, the now last-surviving branch of the Eat and Go re opened after a extensive rebuild. This rebuilt restaurant re-uses the surviving part of the building, meaning it retains it's original Little Chef architecture . This made it one of the few remaining cafes surviving on the busy A303. Unexpectedly, in December 2021, the whole site closed permanently for 4 and half months.
In May 2022, the former Little Chef reopened as Sol Bakery and Cafe. The adjacent Murco Forecourt & Spar on-site had closed around the same time.
Little Chef Remains[]
- Litter bins and lamp posts (all but one of the lamp posts have been painted red when Eat & Go opened here) - some of the litter bins still have 45-year-old Little Chef stickers on them, albeit now worn out!
- The frames of all free-standing signage, including the totem.
