Guide to Barthomley services

It's not an official service area, but it is positioned off the M6 at J16 and at the end of the Stoke D-Road, for traffic on the A500. The service area does not have parking for lorries, but on both sides of the A500 on the other side of the motorway are large lay-bys which lorries tend to use instead.

Facilities

Catering: Greggs, KFC Amenities: Travelodge Outdoor Space: Small grass area between restaurant and hotel Charging Points: Shell Recharge 50kW CCS & 50kW CHAdeMO Forecourt: Shell, Select, Deli by Shell, Costa Express, Free Cash Machine

Parking Prices

Short stay customer parking is available for cars. No HGV parking is available.

This information is provided to us by third parties. You should always check with staff on site.

Contact Details

Trivia and History

Cheshire East Council have designated Radway Green Road as a potential new employment area, and have suggested they would like to see the service area expanded with additional facilities.

This service area was built by Kelly's Kitchen in partnership with Petrofina, who were attracted to the area following the completion of the Barthomley Link. They spent £1.2m on the project and initially called it Barthomley services, though it would become known as their Crewe branch.

The first plan, drawn in 1987, had a smaller restaurant positioned next to the A500. A revised plan, dated 1989, had the restaurant in its present position, in a larger building with an overhanging roof and a tall chimney. The hotel was now labelled 'Highway Lodge'.

The site opened in May 1990. As part of the construction, local football legend Sir Stanley Matthews buried a time capsule at the site. Soon after it opened, Kelly's Kitchen and Highway Lodge were purchased by Trusthouse Forte who re-branded the restaurant as Little ChefHistory. The Highway Lodge became the Barthomley branch of Forte Travelodge. The rebranded facilities opened in December 1990.

After Granada purchased Forte, they added a Burger King to the Little Chef. This closed a few years later (with Burger King signage visible but covered up), but it re-opened in 2012. As the Little Chef brand began to rapidly decline, this became their only branch which was close to a motorway.

The Fina garage became Elf, and then Total. In 2012 the Total garage changed to Shell.

The Little Chef was still trading when the restaurant building was acquired by EG Group in 2017. They were expected to turn the Little Chef into a Starbucks, but this couldn't happen. Their rights to the brand ran out, so the Little Chef was forced to become EG Diner in January 2018. The Burger King and EG Diner restaurants closed on 20 May 2018.

The EG Diner was replaced by a KFC Drive Thru, which involved a refurbishment of the current building and a drive thru lane being built around it. This opened on 12 September 2018. The Burger King was replaced by a Greggs store which opened in October 2018.

The Greggs store later passed to Asda in November 2023 following their split from EG Group.

Drive Thru debacle

The KFC restaurant was transferred into the UK & Ireland estate in February 2024 as part of EG Group's sale of their KFC franchise. Following the transfer, it was discovered that part of the land that the drive-thru lane falls outside Cheshire East local authority area and as a result the drive-thru doesn't have full planning permission and has to close.

It's not known how the restaurant will be affected by the closure of the drive-thru lane, but with the restaurant only trading between 11am and 8pm most days anyway, the branch may not trade for much longer.

Alternatives

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