Big Chef takes on Little Chef - Episode 1

Little Chef is a British brand that had its heyday in the 1970s when it had a significant market share of roadside food particularly along A-roads. Since then it has been in decline and has lost significant market share. Channel4's "Big Chef takes on Little Chef" describes how Little Chef's boss, Ian Pegler, assigns molecular gastronome Heston Blumenthal the task of reviving the brand. Is this a challenge too far?

Mrs O and I were fascinated by the first episode of this programme last night not just because of the challenge, but because the "flagship restaurant" is at Popham on the A303. We have often refueled there but have never tried the Little Chef.

My first recollection of Little Chef in the 1970s was that it was a cut above some of its competition. People ate out far less then, money was tight and a large element of the food sector was the high street greasy cafe where you could get fried food, tea and coffee. I recall stopping at a Little Chef in Surrey and finding that it seemed cleaner and tidier than the average "caff" and that the coffee tasted better - indeed my first black coffee was in that Little Chef and I have stayed with black coffee ever since.

My last two visits to Little Chefs were in late December 1998 & 1999 when my office had a "Christmas breakfast" complete with champagne bottles hidden under the tables (I must stress that the illicit alcohol came from colleagues and not from Little Chef!). I must admit I was not very impressed. I like a cooked breakfast occasionally but do not like one with fried eggs and baked beans; however it seemed then to be impossible to get anything other than the full breakfast. These days I think that is a problem - two of my sons don't eat mushrooms but like black pudding, Mrs O does not like black pudding or baked beans but loves mushrooms. The place seemed chaotic and run down; it was demolished a few years ago. I have not visited a Little Chef since.

A Clash of Cultures

I found the interactions between Ian Pegler and Heston Blumenthal very interesting. Ian showed a positive attitude to begin with but set Heston an almost impossible task. How could he reasonably update the menu without understanding the costs? I totally understand that you would not want to make public your target margins on Channel 4 but isn't that the sort of thing you sort out with a non-disclosure agreement before agreeing to let filming go ahead?

Similarly, Ian seemed to think that Heston could wave a "magic wand" and create an "explosion of taste" that would have hordes of people coming back to eat. This seemed rather naive given presumably limited budget constraints and limitations in the kitchens and staff. How could he possibly come up with a practical solution without understanding the constraints he had to work with?

Not surprisingly there was a huge difference between the world of fast, roadside food and the world of a 3 Star restaurant. Heston immediately spotted some of the problems that Little Chef seems to have:
a) A huge menu
b) No real theme to the menu
c) No pots and pans
d) Huge portions with low quality ingredients e.g. the mixed grill
e) Some wierd dishes e.g. the hamburger with pineapple.
f) Dreadful coffee probably unchanged for decades.

However, I was really surprised at the ideas that Heston came up with. People visiting roadside food outlets generally have a limited time and will not wait forever if they are trying to drive a few more hours down to Devon or Cornwall. If they want to stop for an hour for some really good food surely they would turn off the A303 and find a good pub or even gastro-pub? Food such as hotpot with oysters and sweetbreads belongs in a gastropub not in a Little Chef. I know a few people who are hard core Little Chef customers; without being patronising they like fairly plain, bland grub. To survive one element has to be to retain these customers, though since they are a shrinking breed this must be complemented with something for a new type of customer.

He also totally failed to grasp who the target customer is - something that the Little Chef Popham manager clearly understood - it is motorists whose main goal is to go from A to B rather than to eat for its own sake. Heston's chef's certainly did not understand their customers when they looked down on the Popham staff while failing to attact business.

Competition and Market

One thing that surprised me about both Ian and Heston was that they never seemed to discuss their market and competition. So who would stop at Popham? The A303 runs from the M3 West of Basingstoke to the A30 East of Honiton. So likely customers are either people whose work brings them to North Hampshire or people travelling from the London area to the South West. Let's take a look at the Popham site...with the help of Google.

The Little Chef is on the right of the service area (set at 45 degrees to the road) and only covers westbound traffic. To the left of it there is a BP filling station which attracts a lot of traffic especially on Friday evenings and in the Summer. There is little parking for lorries so the target market for Little Chef has to be car and van drivers.

For people travelling to the South West you probably do not want to spend more than 30-45 minutes at Popham; after all it is a good two more hours to Exeter. Families going on holiday to Devon and Cornwall will want reasonably priced comfort food. Business people travelling around N Hampshire will probably want a similar length stop to rest and refresh. However, how many of these people really need huge portions? Most are doing something sedentary or driving rather than heavy manual work.

So what is the competition? Firstly if you are driving out from the M25 you can stop at Farnborough services on the M3 and get yourself either a Kentucky Fried Chicken or Burger King (or maybe it's McDonalds). Further down the A303 near Amesbury you have Solstice Park with another KFC, a Pizza Hut and a Harvester outlet. In laybys on the A303 there are the odd roadside caravans selling burgers and cups of tea.

However, a newish competitor for Popham's Little Chef is the BP garage next door. If you are running low on fuel you have a compelling reason to stop at the garage but not necessarily at the Little Chef. About 5 years ago BP added a "Wild Bean Cafe" which I bet sells better tasting coffee than Little Chef. More recently a Marks and Spencers convenience store was added and has been very busy - I have been fed up waiting to pay for my petrol with a large queue of people with shopping baskets ahead of me! However if you fancy an M & S sandwich or wrap that means Little Chef loses the potential business.

Oregano's Gut Feel

Little Chef had little competition in the 1970s and 1980s and faces lots of fast food competitors both multinationals and independent caravan operators. If I fancied a bacon roll I would try a caravan if it was clean and reasonably priced. However if a roadside place could offer a nice soup & wholemeal bread or really earthy sausages, mash and onion gravy - like a cafe near here - I would definitely want to sit down and eat.

I still am a little surprised that a top chef like Heston was given the task to review the menus. I would have recommended looking abroad to see how roadside food is served there. Other European countries have the big US-based multinationals like McDonalds and KFC but their own chains seem to have fared better competitively than British ones. The best roadside food I can recall was from France or Italy. For example a steak hache in France is - like Little Chef's burgers - done on a griddle and served with frites. However the steak hache usually tastes as if it has been made from scratch and not using some fatty patty from the freezer. In Italy in the 1990s I recall visiting AutoGrill a fairly large roadside chain there. I recall really delicious sandwiches with lovely cheese or salami served in rustic bread. They also grilled very good food but like Little Chef it was turned around quickly.

However, Little Chef has some strengths. Their staff are incredibly proud of their jobs and motivated; a bit of retraining ought to be able to tap into that. There is also the "hard core" customer who likes their sort of food; though they are probably declining in number. The trick would seem to be to differentiate from the US multinationals with some well prepared fast British food.

Key things I think they can do are:
i) Significantly reduce the menu
ii) Use better quality ingredients e.g. sausages with a high percentage of meat and serve smaller portions
iii) Buy decent coffee machines - UK customers are more sophisticated than they have ever been in the past
iv) Buy some pots and produce some simple comfort food like good vegetable soups (e.g. carrot & corriander or spicy parsnip) with some good bread or a nice chilli con carne. Similarly offering two well-prepared curries on the menu (not the flour-thickened gloop you get at motorway service stations but with an onion/tomato base) would probably resonate well.
v) Ensure that the place was a good place to freshen up on a long journey (good toilets and washing facilities)
vi) Offer free WiFi for the business traveller.

Anyway I look forward to hearing how the next steps go...I plan to watch Episode 2 tonight.

However, I wish I had known that the experiment was taking place. I would certainly have stopped to try a Heston Blumenthal hotpot!