Killiecrankie place mat (from Save Little Chef facebook page).
The Killiecrankie branch was a former Little Chef restaurant located on the A9 near Killiecrankie, Scotland.
It was one of three Little Chefs built in this year on the Perth to Inverness corridor (with Inverness and Newtonmore the other two). Originally it was only open over the summer months to cater for the tourist trade but later became an all year round branch.
Legend has it that one of the Forte MDs for Little Chef in the 70s used to love the branch so much he would take a holiday and go and work there for a while himself, serving the customers.
Due to its fairly remote location, there was basic accommodation for staff behind the restaurant - little more than glorified sheds - so that they didn't have to travel miles to work every day.
In 1986, the A9 was taken on a new alignment with the new dual-carriageway "Killiecrankie Viaduct" taking the traffic well away from the Little Chef. However, despite this, Killicrankie Little Chef stayed open and continued to attract customers from the A9 in their droves. Sadly though in 1995/96, the plug was finally pulled and the restaurant ceased trading. Shortly after it was demolished and two houses have been built on the site - one on the car park and one where the Little Chef building would have been. However, part of the car park and its white lines still remain to this day.
Killiecrankie's other claim to fame, apart from almost sharing its name with the dad in "George's Marvellous Medicine", was that it was one of four sites to feature on the legendary Little Chef placemats of the 1980s (the others being Gaerwen, Hickstead and Oxford). These were present in every restaurant and had a picture of the sites with a brief bit of history. Something to read whilst awaiting your breakfast!