Olympic Breakfast Typology

“If God had meant us to walk everywhere, he wouldn’t have given us Little Chefs.”

Reverend Bernice Woodall, The League of Gentlemen

Once a staple of the British roadside, Little Chef passed through numerous hands from 2008, each closing more and more restaurants in a desperate search for financial viability until the company and its famous mascot, Charlie, disappeared for good a decade later.

Born of an era when the 'getting there' was just as much a part of the trip as the 'being there',  Little Chef lost its way, being trapped in the romanticism and escapism of the American road trip, a concept incompatible with this island of ours. With the space between origin and destination now regarded as an inconvenience, societal trends have shifted - service stations are now the source of fast-food, quick piss-stops and coffees-to-go. Many a Little Chef now stands disused or derelict, having become the ox-bow lakes of our increasingly time-obsessed culture. 

Despite their disuse, dereliction or metamorphosis into a Starbucks or Burger King, clues to a previous life remain. With branding removed and the 'safe journey' message spanning the exit sliproad now tyre-beaten and faded, car parks are still lined with 'mini-milk' lights, a staple of the restaurant's 1980s and 1990s heyday. The company’s drawn out collapse has transformed them, now totems marking where there was once a Little Chef, but is no longer.

The work comments on the failure of American imperialism and the exporting of the American dream to British shores. Route 66 may take you from Chicago to Santa Monica, but the M18 takes you from Rotherham to Goole.