Little Chef

I've just watched the on-going story of the conversion of Little Chef back into a profitable, and reasonable restaurant by Heston Blumenthal.

I've fond memories of Little Chef back in the good days. You could always rely on them for a decent, reasonable priced meal or just a quick cup of tea. My more recent memories are of a place where quality was non-existent, both in terms of the food, and the service. Worst of all, they pumped the prices up to make the whole experience unpleasant and expensive.

Where did it all go wrong?

Like many people, I've seen dozens of what were popular sites close. The Little Chef estate is a shadow of it's former self.

What's this all got to do with rats? Well, as I just told the Little Chef website; my last visit to the Popham site (which seems to have been transformed since then) was about a year ago. I sat in the car park finishing a phone conversation, and watched, horrified, as a family of rats ran to and from an overflowing bin.

It's not the first time I've seen this; the last time was at Reading services on the M4 motorway. That day, I got some great photos of the rats.

The problem with these companies is that they put all their pest control out to contract, and the over-riding factor when making the decision to award a contract is price. The result is a scramble by national pest control companies to see who can offer the lowest price in the hope of being able to make some money by 'upselling' other services (bait stations, fly control units, bird proofing etc). I've seen contracts worth as little as £6 per routine visit! What sort of service would you get for that price? Very poor.

Pest control technicians also hate these contracts. They are not allowed to spend too long on site, and the site staff tend to treat them with contempt.

So why does it happen?

Because we let it.