Two external kiosks at Taunton Deane South, consisting of a Costa and The Cornish Bakery. These are located outside the main entrance of the site & are handy during the summertime peak, preventing the interior of Taunton Deane overcrowding. Costa Kiosks, such as this one, were once a very common sight at motorway services, always being accompanied by a larger Costa lounge in the amenity building. Mostly, these have now been replaced by other facilities (at Reading West, a Costa kiosk was transformed into a Phone Tech). This Costa kiosk seems to only be open in the summer. The Cornish Bakery is quite an unusual brand to come across at motorway services, with only a limited amount of Roadchef's providing them. All the M5 Roadchef's have one, & mostly they are in the form of external kiosks, such as this one (the only exception to this is Strensham Northbound, which has a large Cornish Bakery lounge with seating). It mimics Moto's West Cornwall Pasty outlets. This Cornish Bakery kiosk has since been refurbished, adding their new, lower profile, logo and colour scheme. These are the only external units at Southbound. Customers of these facilities are expected to take away their products, however, they can use the internal/external seating areas. These external facilities are useful when the site gets extremely busy as customers are able to get coffee & snacks without entering the amenity building. In addition to this, external units means that Taunton Deane can provide more facilities without using up internal space. Cornish Bakery kiosk was installed here in 2017, and the Costa kiosk is from the late 2000s. There also used to be an outdoor Ice Cream kiosk branded Carte D'Or. Roadchef used to own many of these, but they have all since been removed. Cornish Bakery do inflate their motorway prices slightly as they are aware of the increased demand here. Sadly, some customers are put off by this inflation and in most cases, will take their custom to McDonald's instead. This pic evidences the leafy nature of Taunton Deane, with a wealth of Somerset greenery. The footbridge can also be seen in the distance. You can also see my shadow! The Cornish Bakery was totally empty during my visit as the site was quite quiet, and the cold time of year (December 2023) means most customers would rather eat inside. The Cornish Bakery isn't signposted from the M5 Southbound, so customers stopping won't necessarily be aware of the brand. Costa is signposted as a drive thru. Neither of these kiosks are required to be advertised around the site as they are already quite obvious from the outside of the amenity building.

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

Assigned to galleries: Taunton Deane, Cornish Bakery, M5, Roadchef