The Colsterworth South branch was a former Little Chef restaurant located on the northbound side of the A1 near Colsterworth, Lincolnshire.
Opened in the 1980s, Colsterworth South and its northbound partner, Colsterworth North, both opened as a Forte dual sider just to the north of the Colsterworth Roundabout. Each side sported a filling station and a Happy Eater restaurant. The southbound side had the bonus of a hotel that looked like it opened as a Travelodge branch. At this point, the A1 between London and York was pretty well served with Little Chefs at Alwalton, Wansford, Astwick, North Muskham, New Fox North and Barnsdale Bar so it made sense for Forte to increase representation of their other brand. The Happy Eaters on both sides were housed in large, brick buildings with the trademark Happy Eater chimney and weather vane. The filling station had previously traded as an Esso for some time before being re-branded as JET. As of late 2016, it is now operating as a BP.
In 1989, Granada built a new service station known as Colsterworth Services to the south east gradient of the Colsterworth Roundabout, giving Colsterworth a third service area. Colsterworth Services was built as part of Granada's plans to conquer the A-roads with scaled-down motorway-style sites, so it was a lot larger than Colsterworth North and South and had many more facilities. Granada built an AJ's family restaurant at Colsterworth Services, alongside a Burger King and Travelodge hotel.
In 1995, Granada decided that Little Chef proved to be more profitable than AJ's and replaced all of AJ's family restaurants at their sites with Little Chefs. However, Colsterworth Services proved to be an exception here. The Happy Eater restaurants at Colsterworth North and South were acquired by Granada as part of the Forte deal in 1995. Granada decided to keep these and, in order to safeguard their trade, opted not to put a Little Chef into Colsterworth Services, leaving Burger King as the only restaurant option for a few years. The Happy Eaters were then converted to Little Chefs in 1997, a process Forte had started with the Happy Eater brand as Little Chef made more money. However, by 1998 a complete U-turn had been performed and both Little Chefs were closed and a Little Chef restaurant opened in Granada's main Colsterworth Services instead alongside the Burger King. The hotel at Colsterworth South also closed down as there was already a Travelodge at Colsterworth services, therefore there was no need for the Colsterworth South hotel.
The Little Chef at Colsterworth South and it's partnering Travelodge remained disused for many years, with the site becoming overgrown and in poor condition. The former restaurant was eventually demolished sometime in 2014/15, while the former Travelodge remained standing until 2019. The site became occupied by a McDonald's drive-thru, which opened in late 2019.
The Colsterworth North Little Chef on the other hand reopened as a Chinese Restaurant known as "China Moon".