Communal seating available at Maidstone, located between the Costa lounge and restaurant units, left of the corridor and near the main entrance. The layout has never changed at Maidstone and when built in 1997, this seating area would’ve been one large restaurant (Foodfayre) with a separate Wimpy opposite (now McDonalds). Since the restaurant has been reduced in size and a Costa has been added with seating of its own. This seating serves McDonalds, Chozen Noodle & Garden Square Deli customers. The interior of Maidstone appears rather dated, having not been structurally changed since 1997, due to the site’s low custom levels. In 2015, there were plans to add a SPAR shop to the front of the amenity building. The interior is typical of late 90s Roadchef buildings, with a large sunroof, flooding the interior with sunlight during the day & making the interior feel larger. In the late 90s, Roadchef seem to have tried making their buildings seem more mock-Victorian, with pillars and green lamp shades making the place feel much older than it is. This heavily contrasts to the type of buildings Moto and Welcome Break were opening during the same era. It’s a surprisingly large seating area for a quiet place with few facilities. Roadchef have similar buildings at Tibshelf and Chester, despite the extensions done there. Even Clacket Lane, down the road from here, obtains similar building designs and was built just 4 years before in 1993. This seating area was still in use by some customers despite how quiet the place was and that the restaurant units had closed by this point. The seating area was clean during my visit, always making a difference. It’s likely that even during the day, this seating doesn’t fill up as the McDonald’s drive thru lane here will mean less customers coming inside and using this seating, decreasing its demand. Same goes for Costa drive thru. Hopefully no massive changes are made to the interior at Maidstone as I like it’s prominent 1997 Roadchef design.

Photo taken on 09/04/2024 by Tom Moon.

Assigned to galleries: Maidstone, M20, Roadchef