The Skipton branch was a former Little Chef restaurant located at the junction of the A59/A65 near Skipton, North Yorkshire.
Address and Onsite Information[]
ADDRESS: Gargrave Road, Skipton, North Yorkshire, BD23 1UD
ONSITE FACILITIES: Burger King, Travelodge (Book Room)
History[]
The Little Chef at Skipton had first opened in 1986/87 at a small roundabout site located just outside of Skipton. It was located in the Yorkshire Dales and it had the ability to serve two major routes in Yorkshire, thus the branch should've been reasonably busy.
In terms of the restaurant building, it looks to have been built from local stone. This was the perfect building design for the restaurant as it had nicely blended in with the surrounding countryside and it had sported a lot of characteristics of Yorkshire buildings, therefore the Little Chef gave that local Yorkshire feel to travellers. The building at Skipton was very similar to another Little Chef restaurant building located at Newby, located just down the A65 (Newby closed in 2012.)
Alongside Skipton was a Travelodge hotel, where tired travellers could stop for the night and use the Little Chef as the breakfast base in the morning, therefore there was that likely chance of attracting extra custom to the site. The town of Skipton had also given the Little Chef the chance to attract extra custom to the site as locals could use the restaurant too as well as the fellow travellers on the A59 and A65. In the Granada era, Burger King had opened alongside the Little Chef and where a lot of Burger Kings had closed in the mid 2000s, it was safe to say that the Skipton Burger King had successfully soldiered on, along with the Little Chef.
Looking at the site, it displays many of the characteristics of the "New Choices" Little Chefs, created by then owners Compass in the early 2000s, with the hidden kitchen and classier interior. However, it was never actually listed as a Choices site so this may have just been refurbished at the same time as Choices using the same materials.
Following the takeover by Euro Garages in 2017, Skipton 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. The EG Diner had closed by July 2018 and was replaced by a Greggs. The Burger King remains unaffected.
