The Marston Moretaine branch was a former Little Chef restaurant located on the A421 near Marston Moretaine, Bedfordshire.
Address and Onsite Information[]
ADDRESS: Beancroft Road, Marston Moretaine, Milton Keynes, MK43 0PZ
ONSITE FACILITIES: Shell, deli by Shell (forecourt), Costa Express (forecourt), Burger King, Greggs, Spar, Lavazza, Travelodge (Book Room)
History[]
The Little Chef at Marston Moretaine first opened its doors in 1988/89 alongside a Travelodge hotel and filling station at a roundabout site just outside Marston Moretaine. Roundabout sites were always great news for Little Chef sites as they provided easy access to all routes, as well as being highly visible. As well as being built at a roundabout, Marston Moretaine also benefitted from advanced signage on the A421, therefore this helped increase the popularity of the services. In addition to this, the services were located on the doorstep of Marston Moretaine, therefore this meant that as well as drivers stopping off at the Little Chef for a bite to eat, the locals could also dine there as well, thus increasing custom! In a nutshell, it was the ideal site!
In the Granada era (the mid 1990s), a Burger King was added alongside the Little Chef in order to provide more choice at the services. This closed in the early 2000s. However, all was not lost as it was resurrected in 2013 under the ownership of the Kout Food Group.
The Little Chef then received the "New Choices Makeover in 2002, giving it some smart new furniture and access to exciting menus from Harry Ramsdens, Upper Crust, Wiseguys Pizza and Caffe Ritazza. Nowadays it trades again as a standard Little Chef but quite a smart one.
Throughout the mid 2000s, the A421 saw an increase in the volume of traffic, therefore in 2009/10, the road was upgraded to dual carriageway between the M1 at Junction 13 and Bedford. With most of these projects, such as the A1 widening between Dishforth and Leeming Bar, existing service areas would be lost (such as Rainton in this case). However, this was not the result for Marston Moretaine as a new grade separated junction was built next to the services, meaning that the site could still happily soldier on without being forced to close. To make things better, the new A421 still had advanced signage for the services, thus popularity remained high and the Little Chef lived on!
Following the takeover by Euro Garages in 2017, Marston Moretaine was one of a number sites converted to an EG Diner in January 2018. This is due to the expiration of Euro Garages' right to use the Little Chef brand name. However, the EG Diner closed by July 2018 and was later replaced with a Greggs and Sainsbury's On the go stores, alongside a newly refurbished Burger King. The Sainsbury's On the go store was later rebranded to Spar in early 2021.
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