For millions of British tourists for nearly six decades, taking a pitstop at a Little Chef was so much fun that it felt like an integral part of any UK holiday by car.
The sight of the familiar red-and-white logo – depicting a friendly-looking cartoon figure in chef’s whites – would signal a welcome breather on a long journey.
Tired motorists, seated in bright red banquettes, would devour a sustaining fry-up known as the ‘Olympic Breakfast’, or hearty dishes including steak and eggs and chilli con carne – and kids would be given free orange lollies to make journeys a little less fractious.
Founded in 1960, the Little Chef was a forerunner for the modern service station but, without shopping outlets and refuel options, the appetite for the roadside cafes eventually waned.
At its height, there were 439 of the roadside cafes across the UK, but even the attentions of one of the country’s best known chefs, Heston Blumenthal, in the late noughties couldn’t save the brand from the brink and, in 2018, it was well and truly cooked.
For the bricks and mortar the Little Chefs were housed in, however, a new, less wholesome story, has since evolved.
A bite to eat? Nostalgia-laden Little Chefs, which opened in 1960 but closed for good in 2018, signalled a mid-journey break for many Brits (Pictured: The former Kettering East Little Chef)
Blacked out windows conceal the x-rated shopping opportunities at the nation’s largest sex shop chain, Pulse and Cocktails, which has taken on many of the former Little Chef sites (Pictured: The Kettering East site in more recent times)
A saucier proposition awaits those who pull up at one of Pulse & Cocktails’ 17 branches across the UK, with many at roadside sites
On the eastbound side of the Kettering Southern Bypass, between Junction 8 and 9 of the A14, the Little Chef that served hungry travellers for nearly 20 years until 2017, now serves up something entirely different.
After briefly becoming a Greggs and Subway, early last year the pitched roof building was snapped up by Pulse & Cocktails, which styles itself as ‘the nation’s largest sex shop chain’.
The nostalgia-laden Little Chef logo has long gone, with welcome signs instead imploring curious motorists to ‘call in and explore’.
The windows are blacked out with titillating comic book-style images and the bricks have been painted a dark grey.
What does the brand, which is family run and has 17 stores across the UK, many on major highways, sell?
Everything from sex toys to fetish and bondage gear to lingerie and lubricants.
Speaking to The Times about the opportunity to breathe new life into the former cafe sites, Davy Boothby, Pulse & Cocktails’ MD, said the former Little Chef premises ‘ticked every box’ when it came to offering a perfect location for a sex shopin 2026.
He said: ‘It’s discreet, good parking, just off the main road. It’s en route for a lot of people on the commute, or maybe going somewhere for the weekend’.
And Kettering East isn’t the only Little Chef to follow the same fate.
The A1, the UK’s longest numbered road, has a brace of former Little Chef conversions; at Pontefract and Grantham.
Pulse & Cocktails’ clientele may be after something more illicit than a cup of tea and a scone…but they’re still very happy customers it seems.
One review of the Grantham store, posted by FiFi Trixibelle in 2025, praised the brand, saying: ‘You have such a great brand, with an array of fascinating products that ‘other’ less experienced locations do not have or are unable to support. Keep going P&C! You are what makes the A1 the sexiest road in the country! Customers for life.’
In 2008, Heston Blumenthal famously tried to revive the fortunes of Little Chef by revamping the menu, with an accompanying Channel 4 TV show documenting his attempts to make people fall in love with the brand once more.
The partnership faltered with Chief executive Graham Sims saying later that the collaboration had been ‘a great catalyst for change’, but adding: ‘Customers don’t want fine dining in a Little Chef. It raised the profile and he helped us enormously, but his menu was less than five per cent of our sales.’
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