Costa Drive Thru kiosk at Taunton Deane Southbound, located between the entry slip road and the M5 South. This pic was taken from my car. This drive thru is very typical of Roadchef, a small Costa kiosk without any customer seating. This is a useful facility as it means customers are able to purchase Costa products without needing to park & enter the amenity building. It's handy for those in a rush, & also prevents the amenity building from overcrowding. Taunton Deane being an online site means motorists stopping here don't need to navigate a junction to access the site. This makes it more ideal to have a Costa drive thru. I've always found offline site Costa drive thrus (like Cherwell Valley or Maidstone) are quite pointless as it's time consuming to reach the drive thrus themselves. This drive thru Costa would've opened in 2016 & hasn't been refurbished/modified since (sports Costa's theme colours of grey & maroon). Motorway coffee shop drive thrus began with Welcome Break, who used derelict buildings at Fleet and Membury to construct Starbucks drive thrus. These proved very popular, so they added more in purpose-built buildings using land from their car parks. Roadchef then added Costa drive thrus to Rownhams in 2016, likely taking inspiration from Welcome Break. These Costa drive thrus then quickly spread to virtually all their sites. The last to the party was Moto, who installed a Costa drive thru at Reading Eastbound. Moto's Costa drive thrus follow the same design as Roadchef ones, but many of their sites still lack a Costa drive thru. Pricing for this drive thru is the same as the lounge in the amenity building and both are rapidly inflated compared to high street branches. This may be off putting for some. Looking at motorway services 50 years ago, with their buffet style sit-down dining, you'd never imagine they would become "mini food courts" with drive thrus. This change shows both adaptation & decline. Services aren't as luxurious now as they were back 50 years ago, but now customers are able to get served much faster. This drive thru doesn't remain open 24 hours, so during the night customers will only be able to use the internal lounge/Costa Express at WHSmith. Costa Drive thru was surprisingly quiet for midday. Taunton Deane South was quiet in general, so when it's busy (especially during the summer holidays) this drive thru will be in much higher demand. Costa is signposted from the M5 South as a drive thru, so customers are aware of this facility from the motorway. Costa drive thru is also advertised lots around the site.

Photo taken on 22/12/2023 by Tom Moon.

Assigned to galleries: Taunton Deane, Costa Drive Thru, M5, Roadchef