Upper Crust
| Locations: | 1 services |
| Often accompanied by: | Little Chef |
| Related names: | Caffè Ritazza |
| Used by: | Welcome Break |
| Introduced: | 2000 |
| Predecessors: | Granada 2Go |
| Successors: | Arlo's, Costa, The Good Bakery, West Cornwall Pasty Co |
Upper Crust and The Pasty Shop are two bakery and coffee chains, which in Britain are mostly associated with railway stations.
The two entered into a partnership with Welcome Break in 2018, which saw branches open at Oxford, Telford and Warwick. This has been scaled back to The Pasty Shop only.
With the exception of the Welcome Break sites, every Upper Crust and The Pasty Shop is operated by SSP. When Granada became a sister company of SSP in 2000, they started opening Upper Crust units in their motorway service areas, replacing Granada's self-branded snack store. They also opened some Upper Crust units in their Little Chef restaurants.
The relationship with Little Chef was short-lived, but the motorway branches lasted for a few more years, long after Granada had become Moto. Even after Moto were split from SSP in 2006, most of the Upper Crusts continued to operate as franchises, and a new one opened at Cherwell Valley in 2010. This would go on to be their final Moto franchise, until it closed in 2020.
Following losses incurred as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, SSP Group announced 5,000 potential redundancies in July 2020, the majority of which would impact Upper Crust. Most motorway sites are operated by Welcome Break so weren't affected by that announcement, but separately, Welcome Break's removed their units in June 2023, as they want to use their own The Good Bakery brand instead.
Locations
Upper Crust operate at one service area: [Download KML]
- Leeds Skelton Lake (M1)
The Pasty Shop operate at one service area:
- Leeds Skelton Lake (M1)
Former Locations
Upper Crust used to be found at the following service areas:
- Bridgwater (M5)
- Cherwell Valley (M40/A43)
- Hilton Park (M6)
- Knutsford (M6)
- Leigh Delamere (M4)
- Medway (M2)
- Oxford (forecourt) (M40/A40)
- Peartree (A34/A44)
- Pease Pottage (M23/A23)
- Reading (M4)
- Stafford northbound (M6)
- Toddington northbound (M1)
- Wetherby (A1(M))
The Pasty Shop used to be found at the following service areas:
- Oxford (forecourt) (M40/A40)
- Telford (forecourt) (M50)
- Warwick (forecourt) (M40)