The Rivenhall End South branch was a former Little Chef restaurant located on the southbound side of the A12 near Witham, Essex.
Address and Onsite Facilities[]
ADDRESS: A12 Southbound, Rivenhall End, Witham, Essex, CM8 3HB
ONSITE FACILITIES: BP, Shop (forecourt), Wild Bean Cafe (forecourt), Starbucks
History[]
Built in 1980, Rivenhall End Services was built as a dual sided site on the main London to Great Yarmouth route just north of Witham. Each side was home to a filling station and Little Chef restaurant, both of which were housed inside of identical buildings with the flat roof and large windows facing out onto the road. This was the usual Little Chef building design of the era.
However, change later came to the site around the mid 80s, when the restaurant was remodelled using the pitched roof, double front design. This was a new method introduced by the builders, which was done by building the new building around the old building and then demolishing the walls of the old building. This allowed Little Chef to utilise original features such as toilets, plumbing and ducting. Typically when Little Chef restaurants were remodelled in this era, they were usually done in order to modernise restaurants prior to the construction of Little Chef Lodge hotels. However, neither Rivenhall End South or North received a hotel.
Given its popularity, Rivenhall End South was one of many sites to receive a Coffee Stop in the early 90s, although this later closed.
In 2007, the restaurant lost its northbound partner, which was sold off following Little Chef collapsing into administration. However, the southbound restaurant continued to soldier on until 2012. By this time Little Chef had passed through the hands of a number of owners and was now under the control of venture capital firm RCapital. In an attempt to make the company more profitable, R Capital decided to cull 67 sites that it deemed to be underperforming with Rivenhall End South being one of them. After the closure of the Little Chef, the branding remained on the building for some time. However, it was later removed.
Along with many other former Little Chef sites, Rivenhall End South was purchased by Euro Garages and in 2013, it was converted into a Starbucks. A Subway outlet was added alongside the Starbucks in 2016, however this was short-lived and was gone by 2019 and was replaced by the Greggs in 2021.
