Is this the place being referred to in this thread
junction26.org/page.php?id=2
The state of some of these so called “Truck Stops” in the UK really is a joke. Crap food, crap facilities, crap parking areas and all for an extortionate fee. Where does this cash go? It certainly isn’t invested back into the business 
I refuse to use any of these places when in the UK. They are mostly a downright disgrace and I have to admit that if any of our other lads does our UK run I advise them to go self catering.
I regularly go past The Hollies and that other joint down the road and they both do not look very inviting.
What is that old saying about first impressions?
The only place that it is vaguely on my route that I would consider using is The Stockyard, but having regularly having my curtains knifed there when working for an English firm a few years ago, I will not park there with my German rig.
Trucker Turner is right on the money with his description of yer German Autohof.
HERE is a link to the Maxi Autohof web site.
Compare and contrast, guys.
And all the girls in Germany look like those pictured on their web site 
It’s the law 
ROG:
Is this the place being referred to in this thread
junction26.org/page.php?id=2
Sort of Rog, the trade descriptions act doesn’t apply to the world wide web.
You can write any old ■■■■■■■■, look what we put on this site 
i used to stop in there a lot when i was pulling out of tilbury.It was just a portakabin then £15 to park with meal and a beer food was good and friendly service.Stopped there about 2 months ago now they,ve got a new building prices are a joke food was rubbish new staff miserable as zb.Wont bother again and yes i did sign the petition 
ROG:
Is this the place being referred to in this thread
junction26.org/page.php?id=2
Yep, that’s the crap hole. How misleading is that website?
Rob K:
The place should be shut down and I’d gladly sign a petition to make it happen.
Couldn’t agree more, boy do I regret signing the original petition. Any time I have been in recently I had the feeling I was an inconvenience to them getting through the day.
Food = crap
Service = crap and slow
Staff = miserable and rude, they really give the impression they don’t want you in there.
Thing is you can’t really complain too much at the time. Having spent a fair few years working in the catering trade I have first hand knowledge as to what happens when a customer complains to or about someone who is going to prepare and serve them food, definitely not recommended.
topmixer11:
BECAUSE i was treated like a piece of ■■■ and im not putting up with it ,i am emailing truckstop news about my experience in this zb hole
I was agreeing with you mate I was just being a bit too clever with it! I only stop there to take a rest the most I will buy is a cuppa from the miserable ■■■■■! Tried the food before, once bitten, twice shy!
got to love the testimonials page…junction26.org/page.php?id=7 is that the best they could come up with?
mjbaron:
got to love the testimonials page…junction26.org/page.php?id=7 is that the best they could come up with?
FPMSL 
Rob K:
mjbaron:
got to love the testimonials page…junction26.org/page.php?id=7 is that the best they could come up with?FPMSL
Note, ‘Ron’ doesn’t actually say where he ate that roll.
J26 ‘truckstop’ don’t make me laugh, that is not a truckstop, it’s a cafe (& a bad one at that) with a muddy pot holed piece of land surrounding it, the only truckstop that this place resembles is one of those roadside shacks they have in Asia, Africa or South America, the only truckstops there have ever been in this country that compare to any of the German ones are Lymm (now a jumped up MSA) & a couple of the BP ones & all of these are a joke when compared with the ones in America.
The Germans & Americans are lorry/truck drivers just like us, they have decent truckstops, as do the Scandinavians, the French, Italian, Spanish & Portugese all have resturaunts with parking & facilities for drivers, how does every other lorry driver in the civilised world get facilities & we don’t?
Yea, Romania, Poland, Bulgaria, they are all far more civilised in terms of driver facilities than the UK…
Coffeeholic:
Thing is you can’t really complain too much at the time. Having spent a fair few years working in the catering trade I have first hand knowledge as to what happens when a customer complains to or about someone who is going to prepare and serve them food, definitely not recommended.
There is a track on Chumbawamba’s album “The Boy Bands Have Won” about the very thing you are alluding to, Neil: Compliments Of Your Waitress
Harry Monk:
Yea, Romania, Poland, Bulgaria, they are all far more civilised in terms of driver facilities than the UK…
Even where no ‘driver’ facilities exist there is no problem parking in towns & using local resturaunts, swimming baths etc.
I don’t understand it, we’ve all progressed in the same kind of way in every part of the road transport world, in terms of laws, supply chains, JIT, inter depot trunking blah blah blah, the world of transport has evolved, except in this country we seem to have forgotten about the most important cog in the wheel, the driver 
Coffeeholic:
ROG:
Is this the place being referred to in this thread
junction26.org/page.php?id=2
Yep, that’s the crap hole. How misleading is that website?
Rob K:
The place should be shut down and I’d gladly sign a petition to make it happen.Couldn’t agree more, boy do I regret signing the original petition. Any time I have been in recently I had the feeling I was an inconvenience to them getting through the day.
Food = crap
Service = crap and slow
Staff = miserable and rude, they really give the impression they don’t want you in there.
Thing is you can’t really complain too much at the time. Having spent a fair few years working in the catering trade I have first hand knowledge as to what happens when a customer complains to or about someone who is going to prepare and serve them food, definitely not recommended.
My theory is that they were never interested in providing food and hence why they make such a bad job of it. I get the impression that someone saw the overnight parking prices at yer average MSA round London and thought ‘hey we can cash in on this if we can get the usage changed on that field with Planning, and then we cream it in charging the trucking scum 20 quid a night’.
It’s difficult to guess just many trucks they can cram in there as I imagine some drivers would probably have something to say about being asked to park in the middle of a boating lake, but I reckon that 20 artics could be accommodated in there and from what I read it’s always full through the week. - A nice little earner for a ‘field’ at £400 a night. Why bother making any effort with the food when you can sit on your arse doing f-all and watch the £20s roll in?
newmercman:
they have decent truckstops, as do the Scandinavians, the French, Italian, Spanish & Portugese all have resturaunts with parking & facilities for drivers, how does every other lorry driver in the civilised world get facilities & we don’t?
And Poles. I’ve been to Poland by car this Christmas, I stopped for food at Mostki truckstop on national 2, about 2 o’clock in the night, full menu available, good and cheap food, nice staff, supermarket oppen, truck parts and accessories shop (of the size of small Tesco) open, even parking areas, clean showers and toilets…
I like Britain for many things, but the truckstops here are a big disgrace.
newmercman:
‘…I don’t understand it … we seem to have forgotten about the most important cog in the wheel, the driver…’
When it comes to the financial nuts & bolts of reality, the bean-counters know the £ cost of everything - but know the value (be it moral, cultural or traditional) of very little unless it can be bled for profit. As far as drivers are concerned, it is suggested ‘…if you don’t like it then become a cog in a different (but often equally miserable) wheel…’
Hey presto, Britain in 2010 is the Number One laughing stock in a very small league. Meanwhile, we give away our heritage whilst stealthily and illegitimately becoming pseudo-Europeans in a failed & very covert attempt at mimicking the American way en-route.
orys:
I like Britain for many things, but the truckstops here are a big disgrace.
Well, it’s the entire transport network really, rail as well as road. The difference in France for example is staggering- everywhere you go they are building new motorways and high speed rail lines, to replace roads and railway lines which were already far better than we have here.
Even the tiniest strip of grass verge seems to be tenderly manicured, they seem proud of it, and rightly so. It’s impossible to imagine them building anything as ludicrous as, say, Catthorpe Interchange.
OK, we are a crowded island but does an eight lane motorway take up that much more room than one of six lanes?
What is wrong with us when it comes to transport?
Harry Monk:
orys:
I like Britain for many things, but the truckstops here are a big disgrace.Well, it’s the entire transport network really, rail as well as road.
Yet Poland would not be a country I would dare to give you as an example of the good roads (although there are rapid changes to the better, we still have long way to go) and the good railway (this is just a joke, Polish rails!). But as for Truckstops, Britain should be ashamed not only compared to France or Germany, the rich countries, but also compared to Poland.
orys:
I stopped for food at Mostki truckstop on national 2
Is that “Las Vegas”, Orys?
Been there myself, albeit only in the car last year.
Far superior to ANY so called “Truck Stop” in the UK.
Just goes to show how far the UK lags behind most of the rest of Europe
Harry Monk:
‘…What is wrong with us when it comes to transport?..’
What’s wrong? Too much political ‘short term-ism’ in an attempt to achieve populism - and an evolved public loathing of failed, destroyed and/or inept attempts at social transport?
Since it was our Industrial Revolution that effectively invented modern world cities, we’re saddled with the expansion of their prototypes. Couple that with myriad freedoms of choice, eg, commercial & social choices and weak & unfocussed leadership, the mix now equals expensive & densly populated land through which people want to shift stuff, live, work & travel.
That said, the M25 was a social, engineering & above all, political masterpiece which, I guess, few in this land will emulate again.
But it’s only guesswork