The name Little Chef Express has had three incarnations during its run. Each was aiming to take on the fast food market, ditching the image of a formal restaurant, albeit in slightly different ways.
Forte Version
It was first created in 1995 by Forte, who had been providing more takeaway outlets in their motorway service areas and began to feel people might expect the same of the larger Little Chefs.
Little Chef Express allowed some popular dishes to be quickly picked up and taken away, in a manner that was compared to McDonald's, who were in the process of rolling out drive thrus. It was introduced to Markham Moor and believed to be an option for Forte to use with its Happy Eaters, but this didn't happen.
After Forte was taken over by Granada, the trial initially continued, with new takeaways at Sparkford, Egginton and Colchester. These had a blue colour scheme, neon lighting, promoted the word "diner" and used a logo showing Charlie moving quickly. They had serving hatch and high stools for seating. A cheeseburger meal cost £3.99. These express units were removed after several months.
Granada Version
With all the brands newly acquired by Granada during the takeover, they began to re-think their restaurant options. Many of their larger Fresh Express restaurants at motorway service areas had a counter taking the name Little Chef Express. This was again designed as a takeaway brand which would take on the fast food names, paying particular attention to younger customers, and forming part of food courts to suit the time-conscious customers that these locations had. These food courts would usually be joined by the likes of La Brioche Doree and Upper Crust.
This version of Little Chef Express used the same Charlie emblem as the previous incarnation, but this time he was positioned on a red background, with "express" written in purple.
This version of Little Chef Express was quickly introduced to many unusual locations, including airports, railway stations, bus stations, ferry terminals and even on board a ferry. Most of these did not last long as they were dependent on being part of Granada's foodservice empire.
Granada Little Chef Express menu (November 1995)
Little Chef Classics
After Granada were broken up, the motorway sites continued as Moto-operated, full-service Little Chef restaurants, even if they had previously been part of an Express food court. Two unusual branches at Belfast and Dover briefly used the name 'Little Chef Classics', apparently because they were too small to operate as a full Little Chef.
RCapital Version
RCapital decided to remove the 11 remaining Coffee Tempo! outlets in 2012, replacing them with a new-look 'Little Chef Express'.
More restaurants had Little Chef Express added, including Popham, York East, West Knoyle, and the former Good to Go outlets at Podimore and Amesbury.
The Little Chef Express at Warminster was removed in favour of Subway.
By February 2018 all Little Chef Expresses had closed.
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