What makes a good service station?

When making long exhausting treks across the UK, service stations play a major role in providing comfort and convenience to long distance lorry drivers, often supplying a temporary home away from home when necessities like food, drink and sleep are required. Of course, the UK’s service stations vary massively in actual ‘services’, some delivering just a McDonalds next to a petrol station and some grotty toilets as pitiful offerings.

A service station shouldn’t just be a place to buy a Ginsters pasty and a scotch egg, for many lorry drivers it is a place to rest and sleep before another long shift begins; so what makes a good service station?

It’s all in the name…

As it states in the title, service stations should deliver a keen focus on service. Service can be scored in a couple of areas; the staff customer focus and the actual services the station provides (KFC, Costa etc).

Let’s face it, working in a service station is probably one of the worst jobs, you have to commute to the middle of no where to serve often tired, stressed and sometimes drunk members of the public; so you can’t blame the no nonsense attitude of the employees.

Unfortunately, I’m not bothered how dry your life is, I’ve been on the road for 8 hours with nothing more then 2 litres of orange Lucozade and Queen Live from Wembley 88 on repeat; if you don’t crack a smile and offer me a first-rate service worthy of a Michelin star restaurant when spooning grey matter pie onto my plate then I am going to do the good old English tradition of probably not complaining, leaving slightly annoyed and potentially writing a mediocre blog about it.

At the minimum, employees should be able to answer basic questions concerning the contents of their pies e.g. the difference between the brown one and the grey one, because, let’s face it, these places are technically restaurants and a second home to most lorry drivers.

Food

This brings me nicely on to my next topic, food. Hidden amongst the fast food alternatives, service stations often provide a “restaurant”.

It’s pretty hard to gorge yourself at a service station without spending at least £20, £20 that you’ve just earned in your last 2 or so hours of driving, so you obviously don’t want to part with your hard earned cash on a Big Mac meal with a Fillet of Fish chaser.

This is the point where most look past fast food solutions in the hope that the home cooked service station alternative can provide more than burnt offerings and disappointment for a decent price.

Unless you like full English breakfasts where each element tastes exactly the same, grey matter pies or soggy fish and chips, not many service stations offer anything truly nutritious; Cumbria’s Tebay service station certainly does though.

Tebay Services

The Mecca of all service stations, the Tebay services is located between J38 and J39 on the M6 just outside the village of Tebay.

With its idyllic setting surrounded by lustrous mountain views and a duck pond, the beautiful countryside getaway is the quintessential service station that hopefully will pave the way for the KFC ridden underworld of standard services throughout the UK.

Complete with home cooked food, an on site butchers and farm shops stocked to the rafters with the best local produce, Tebay services delivers a service which will make weary travellers want to stay much longer than an hour or two.

What separates Tebay services from commercial franchises even further is the offer of 10p off every litre of fuel if you spend over £30 in store, and with the vast selection of tasty produce on offer you’re bound to spend that on feeding a car full.

Examples of great service stations are hard to come by, but the privately owned Cumbrian haven is the perfect setting to rest your head on the M6; let’s hope other services follow suit in the near future.