The Sutton Scotney South branch was a former Little Chef restaurant located on the southbound side of the A34 at Sutton Scotney Services near Sutton Scotney, Hampshire.
Address and Onsite Facilities[]
ADDRESS: A34 Southbound, Sutton Scotney, Winchester, Hampshire, SO21 3JY
ONSITE FACILITIES: Shell, Select (forecourt), Costa Express, McDonald's, Costa, WHSmith, Days Inn (Book Room)
History[]
Forte, who owned Little Chef at this point, had already developed scaled-down Motorway Services on "A-roads" during the 60s and 70s (Barnsdale Bar South, Peartree, Gretna and Grantham) but Sutton Scotney was the first they built in the 80s and using their newly-acquired Welcome Break branding. Each side had both Little Chef and Granary restaurants plus shop, toilets, filling station and later a lodge.
Granada then gained control of the sites with its takeover of Forte in 1995 and added Burger King to the mix instead of the Granary, making Little Chef the only main restaurant option at each site. Granada, now Moto, then pulled out of the site in 2002 when they sold the Little Chef brand and Sutton Scotney then came a Little Chef-controlled site, allbeit a large one. Always one of Little Chef's busier sites, the high usage and the abundant space allowed Little Chef to roll out other brands here. BK and a proper shop stayed and were later joined by Coffee Tempo! However, the last few years have seen Little Chef concentrate on their core business of Restaurant with the shop and BK now closed. The Coffee Tempo! was transformed into a Little Chef Express outlet in 2012 along with 10 other Coffee Tempo! sites.
In Little Chef's recent takeover by Kout Food Group, the Sutton Scotneys were not included with R Capital keeping control of them. Although the Little Chefs kept trading, many wondered for how long and what would become of them. The answer came in 2014 when it was revealed that Sutton Scotney had been sold to Roadchef, who brought in their franchised brands of WH Smith, McDonalds and Costa to each side. After a run of 28 years at Sutton Scotney, Little Chef was removed. Prior to this, both Travelodges at Sutton Scotney Services had also closed down and have since become Days Inns.
