roadchef

About us…

Owned by the Delek Group, Roadchef is one of Britain's leading roadside service area businesses, operating at 28 Motorway Service Area locations covering the length and breadth of the country. The company has been serving the needs of the travelling public for over 35 Years.

Famously, Roadchef are the proud owner and operators of Watford Gap, the first and most iconic MSA in the UK, which opened its doors on 2nd November 1959 and in 2009 celebrated its 50th Anniversary.

We also operate an impressive portfolio of leading catering, retail and accommodation brands from Costa and McDonald's to WHSmith and Days Inn, not to mention our own in house catering brands featuring The Burger Company, Hot Food Co., serving piping hot meals every time from a contemporary food servery and our free flow restaurant offer Restbite.

Delek Group is the leading energy and infrastructure group based out of Israel with investments in upstream and downstream energy, water desalination and power plants. Delek Group through its subsidiary is also a leading importer and distributor of vehicles in Israel and owns insurance and financial service assets in Israel and the US.

Delek was established in 1951 by the Israeli government as the first Israeli company to operate a small chain of gasoline stations. Today Delek Group is listed on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and is a member of the TA25 index of leading Israeli companies.

Under the ownership of Delek Petroleum, Roadchef operates within the UK MSA sector and is managed by an experienced team led by Chief Executive Simon Turl, who has over 30 years experience in the hospitality sector, with the majority of this gained within the Motorway Service Area sector.

The Roadchef estate now employs over 2,400 people, cares for over 60 million customer visits per year, serves a million breakfasts, 500,000 portions of fish and chips and five million coffees and its catering operation alone turns over £70million per annum, out of a total turnover of £200million.

Indeed on the 22nd October 2010, the company announced the creation of over 400 jobs as part of a multi-million pound investment programme to regenerate its entire estate over the next five years. The next two years will see some £12 million spent on redeveloping the catering facilities at ten key sites, with further improvements at our remaining service areas scheduled to take place over the following three years.

As part of the investment programme, which has recently commenced at Clacket Lane on the M25 and following the successful trial of McDonald’s on the M5 at Strensham services, the famous golden arches will replace the Wimpy brand, in the quick serve restaurant brand’s first ever corporate franchise agreement. In a 20 year agreement, Roadchef will sell McDonald’s food and drink at high street prices, bringing a unique, market leading and value-led branded offering to the motorway.

However, the biggest change to the company’s catering portfolio will see the eradication of the much-maligned Motorway Service Area free-flow restaurant. Taking learning’s from the airport industry and other retail environments, all Restbite outlets, which offer a traditional ‘servery on a tray rail’ approach to dining, will be converted to Roadchef’s own in house brand Hot Food Co., following successful trails at Strensham, Watford Gap and Northampton services.

Hot Food Co. combines a contemporary branded food servery with the latest back of house cooking equipment, which improves food quality, speed of service and continues to deliver value to customers through promotions such as our two meals for £12* deal, but in a more modern setting.

And finally, as part of the refurbishment programme, all Costa outlets across the entire estate will be either relocated to more spacious and prominent areas, or upgraded to deliver the best possible customer experience.

So, with motorway traffic currently increasing at about 3% each year and a period of prolonged ‘staycation’ with the UK population preferring to spend more time at home, rather than travelling to nearby mainland Europe, Roadchef is well placed to build on its current success and improvement with regard to financial performance and stability, innovation, brand development and customer service.

*Excludes Clacket Lane services Eastbound, Durham services and Watford Gap services Northbound.