The amenity building at Boship in August 2024, complete with its Starbucks & Greggs advertisements. Quite a large former Little Chef building, with the Greggs built as an extension to the existing Starbucks. Boship roundabout was built in the 1950s & as soon as it was, plans were developed to build a rest area here. The site didn’t open until 1990, but there were several Little Chefs built in this area. In 1974, Little Chef opened their Lower Dicker branch, which is less than a mile from here on the A22. Little Chefs rival at the time, Happy Eater, acquired the Country Fox restaurant on the A22, at Golden Cross, in the 1980s. At this point, 2 restaurants had been built next to each other & were taking each other’s customers. By 1987, Forte owned both Little Chef and Happy Eater, & were in control of both restaurants. This meant they could make a decision as to what was to be done turning their 2 restaurants into one large restaurant. So in 1990, they built Boship, a 120-seater Little Chef with a petrol station and motel. Once this 1990 building had opened, Forte closed the Little Chef at Lower Dicker, and it later became a bathroom showroom. Meanwhile, the Happy Eater at Golden Cross was rebranded to Little Chef. Then in 1996, the Little Chef at Golden Cross had closed to become a car centre, leaving Forte with just Boship. This meant they could invest in the one site, so they added a Burger King to the large Little Chef here in 1996. Boship was very successful as it took customers from the two former Little Chefs in the area. Then in 2012 (16 years later) the Burger King had closed and the Little Chef was deemed to be underperforming by R Capital, so it closed permanently, leaving this large amenity building completely empty. It was disused for one year, then EuroGarages purchased the building and began refurbishing it. They opened a large Starbucks lounge in April 2013. Starbucks being a well-known, popular coffee brand brings trade to this amenity building, making it very profitable. In 2018, EuroGarages extended this building to add a takeaway Greggs, with a separate entrance. This Greggs has also proven to be very profitable & popular at Boship. Boship was fairly quiet during my visit as I stopped rather early in the morning (the best time to record photos at services). During the day it gets much busier, & it’s normally packed during the summer holidays, so was pleased to see it quiet. Boship is accurately signposted from both directions of the A22 so customers know how to get to these facilities.

Photo taken on 12/08/2024 by Tom Moon.

Assigned to galleries: Boship, A22, EG Group