Poor me, I was driving well in the saturday night and I was hungry. Stopped for 45’ on Lancaster services and went to eat something, which I never do, as I am trying to avoid eating on MSA as much as possible. Usually in this rare situation that I am stuck on MSA and have to eat, I go for Burger King or whatever they had, but I decided to go to EDC instead. There was a special deal: buy a meal for 4.99 and you get small drink for 99p. So I took the meal, went to the coke tap, and there were various cups. I could not work out what’s mean “small” as it wasn’t written on the advert, so I took the smallest cup I could found there (0.5 l), filled it with coke and went to till. The guy told 4.99 for meal and 2.76 (or something) for drink. Then we had this conversation:
Me: But it should be 99p
He: Nope, it’s a regular one.
Me: It was the smallest cup.
He: No it’s not.
Me: But there aren’t any smaller.
He: I don’t care, you filled regular one, you have to pay for regular.
Me: But I don’t want regular, I want small.
He: So you should fill small cup.
Me: So what can I do if there aren’t any small cups there?
He: (after heavy thinking) You can pour out some of this coke
Me: But how much?
He: I don’t know
Me: So just take this back, and give me a small cup.
He: (gave me coffe cup and poured away 0.5 l of coke)
Me: (went to the tap, filled it with coke, came back to till and paid).
OK, I can understand, they try to evade people who are taking regular drinks and want to pay for small one. But there is much easier way to do that: supply the coke machine with the small cups to let people use them. Meantime I was sitting there, eating my dinner, sipping my coke and watching: in about 20 minutes I was there, 4 other customers had the same problem, four times they refused to pay, four times they got coffe cup from the till and 0.5 litres of coke (or it’s multiplication as in two cases they were buying two meals) was wasted.
I can’t understand that: so say, company runs out of cups. Why can’t they put coffe cups next to the machine along with a sign “sorry, no coke cups left, for small drinks use coffe cups”
But what’s most stupid for me: if the customers already filled the regular cups by mistake, isn’t is cheaper to sell them regular ones in the price of small ones (which will cost company giving this 0.17 l of coke for free) instead of wasting 0.5 l and selling them 0.33 litres again?
In 20 minutes I was there they wasted 3 l of coke (according to them worth over 16 quids…)
I used to run to Spain regular & stop on the Aroute by Montpelier. The Services were set out like a kinda village ,so anyway where the snack bar & toilets were there was this big notice that pointed downstairs ,but the toilets were upstairs . I used to sit drinking coffee & every-time the buses stopped elderly passengers in a panic would be like bees in a bottle in the basement looking for the non-existent toilets . I would try to stop them halfway & redirect them . One trip I got fed up with this & tore the notice down .They got the manager & I gave him a rucking in front of his staff & that notice stayed down for ever more . In France in the old days routiers had good back up .I don’t know what its like now?
orys:
In fact, the food itself was tasteless, but tolerable (but definitely not worth 6 quids for a meal).
I have to say Orys, your homeland has much better MSA, truck-stops, restaurants, much better food at reasonable prices, we wouldn’t really bother packing food for trips when we can eat like this.
i went to a welcome break the other day and got a sausage roll and a packet of crisps. when i got to the till i said to the woman “sorry ive only got a £20.00 note”
its ok she said you can put the crisps back she replied
r slicker:
i went to a welcome break the other day and got a sausage roll and a packet of crisps. when i got to the till i said to the woman “sorry ive only got a £20.00 note”
its ok she said you can put the crisps back she replied
I came back to the UK to work in 2006, sailed over to Hull and stopped at Ferrybridge services for a take out coffee. I had £2 in coins, I lived in Denmark which is generally expensive and a coffee is £1 or so. Anyway they had this Costa place were a black coffee appears to be an Americana for some reason, was not a big cup, but my £2 didn’t cover the costa. I dusted down my Halifax debit card and went to a cash machine that wanted a couple of quid to get a tenner out
A few months later stopped at a MSA on the A1 for breakfast, said £4.99 on the poster, but after putting the items on the plate to resemble a breakfast it was nearer £8.00, on closer inspection a bit of toast was near a quid. Didn’t bother with that and she put the items back in the trays
My third and final venture into an MSA was on the M1 and a client was paying for 10 of us to eat, so I had some sort of pie and chips, it was okay, but not great, came to £8.00 with a drink, not worth that sort of money.
That was it for my 3 years back in the UK, always made or took my own food with me. People would laugh here if you told them this, its silly the amount of parking and food stops here, not found a bad one yet.
Some years ago I went in for breakfast at Crappit Woods. I was hungry and there was nothing in the shop so I thought 'hang the expense’ and went for the full brekky at £6.50 or so.
There was quite a queue of suits and the food actually looked pretty appetising, although the spotty yoof behind the counter shovelled rather than arranged the fried eggs, bacon, sausages, fried bread and beans (can I have the beans on the fried bread please?) on my plate. When he handed it to me the plate was stone cold.
“This plate’s cold” I said
“Uh!”
“I’m not paying £8 (coffee was extra) for a cold breakfast.”
“Uh!”
(Loud and slow) “Please take this back and make me a fresh one on a hot plate.”
“They’re all like that.”
(Louder to drown the muttering queue behind me) “Then go and get one from the kitchen.”
He glowered and took my food into the kitchen and re-emerged with the same food on a presumably hot plate. I didn’t touch it. (They had probably gobbed on it anyway)
“No! That food is cold. Get a hot plate and put fresh food on it. At these prices I don’t think it’s too much to ask, do you?” I turned to the now long queue behind me who all suddenly became engrossed in their fingernails.
The cook in his dirty white apron came out. “Woss the problem?”
I explained in the way that one speaks to a deaf two-year-old and then just gave up and walked off.
By the time I got to Oxford SMA I could have eaten a horse (had a burger so probably did )
They have more sway over the pratts on the till than T/NET bloggers. Unless of course he was only following company policy. I would have thought the Moto higher management may have more sense.
I did some double manning for Silent Night last year, all of the drivers only used an MSA for a legal break and/or toilet stop. Never saw one go into the shop or restaurant. All the drivers pulled off the motorway and seemed to have a network of supermarkets and overnight parking places they would stop at. If I was driving in the car somewhere, then the missus and me would hop off the motorway to a Toby or something like it, better food at a better price, its seems a no brainer not to do it. If I take a pee at an MSA I am astonished at the hoards of people with tables full of food, how can they think its good value. Maybe its the pace of life in the UK, everyone in a hurry, no time to take a mile or 2 detour for something better.
I have to agree regards some of the staff, come across very nice people working at these places, but an awful lot of them look as if they would rather be licking windows.
don’t know why you boys bother, never bought anything at an msa in years, only thing i did buy was a newspaper , its the one thing that they don’t charge more than anywhere else.
They have more sway over the pratts on the till than T/NET bloggers. Unless of course he was only following company policy. I would have thought the Moto higher management may have more sense.
Yes, as I already wrote it here, I copied it and pasted there as well
steviebyday:
don’t know why you boys bother, never bought anything at an msa in years, only thing i did buy was a newspaper , its the one thing that they don’t charge more than anywhere else.
That’s my usual way, but I was really hungry, had emergency delivery, so had no time for driving arround in saturday evening looking for some decend food place…
orys:
Poor me, I was driving well in the saturday night and I was hungry. Stopped for 45’ on Lancaster services and went to eat something, which I never do, as I am trying to avoid eating on MSA as much as possible. Usually in this rare situation that I am stuck on MSA and have to eat, I go for Burger King or whatever they had, but I decided to go to EDC instead. There was a special deal: buy a meal for 4.99 and you get small drink for 99p. So I took the meal, went to the coke tap, and there were various cups. I could not work out what’s mean “small” as it wasn’t written on the advert, so I took the smallest cup I could found there (0.5 l), filled it with coke and went to till. The guy told 4.99 for meal and 2.76 (or something) for drink. Then we had this conversation:
Me: But it should be 99p
He: Nope, it’s a regular one.
Me: It was the smallest cup.
He: No it’s not.
Me: But there aren’t any smaller.
He: I don’t care, you filled regular one, you have to pay for regular.
Me: But I don’t want regular, I want small.
He: So you should fill small cup.
Me: So what can I do if there aren’t any small cups there?
He: (after heavy thinking) You can pour out some of this coke
Me: But how much?
He: I don’t know
Me: So just take this back, and give me a small cup.
He: (gave me coffe cup and poured away 0.5 l of coke)
Me: (went to the tap, filled it with coke, came back to till and paid).
OK, I can understand, they try to evade people who are taking regular drinks and want to pay for small one. But there is much easier way to do that: supply the coke machine with the small cups to let people use them. Meantime I was sitting there, eating my dinner, sipping my coke and watching: in about 20 minutes I was there, 4 other customers had the same problem, four times they refused to pay, four times they got coffe cup from the till and 0.5 litres of coke (or it’s multiplication as in two cases they were buying two meals) was wasted.
I can’t understand that: so say, company runs out of cups. Why can’t they put coffe cups next to the machine along with a sign “sorry, no coke cups left, for small drinks use coffe cups”
But what’s most stupid for me: if the customers already filled the regular cups by mistake, isn’t is cheaper to sell them regular ones in the price of small ones (which will cost company giving this 0.17 l of coke for free) instead of wasting 0.5 l and selling them 0.33 litres again?
In 20 minutes I was there they wasted 3 l of coke (according to them worth over 16 quids…)
You should have just given him £6 and walked off. If the smallest mug they had by the cold drinks dispenser, was what they call regular, then tough, it’s still the smallest. By the time security turned up you would have eaten most of your dinner and could just tell them to F/O anyway.
well done Orys for making a stand against the rip off merchants.
i don’t understand the £4.99 breakfast offer at lymm. When you fill up with fuel you can get a breakfast or main meal for £4.99 if you get a voucher. Well i did this and ordered my breakfast. Egg, bacon, sausage, hash brown, beans, 2 toast, and a coffee. it came to the same price as it does without a voucher. about £7.50ish. i explained to the women that i’d just given her a voucher, so it should be £4.99. She grunted, so i buggered off before i caught swine flu.
I went in one MSA a while back, and as it was the middle of summer and the place was heaving with mindless morons zig-zagging across the floor, I decided to get some food from the counter just inside the entrance. Last time ever !
Here’s what I got for about £9 (including a medium black coffee)
I was only on a 30 break, and if I hadn’t been starving and already spent 10 minutes in the ■■■■■■■ queue I would have walked off without it.
Also I went into Rownhams MSA near Southampton for a coffee at about 9am one day. I ordered an Americano, and after a few grunts the dim girl handed me a white coffee. What’s this I asked. Your coffee she said. But it’s got milk in it. You should have said you don’t want milk, she said. AMERICANO DOESN’T COME WITH MILK ! I said. She just looked at me. Give me a black coffee I said.
Sigh.
These days I have a cool box and go to the supermarket and get the fresh stuff that’s about to go out of date for half price. I can fill the cool box for £9. A jar of coffee costs less than 1 Americano and I can use it whenever and wherever I am.
orys:
Then we had this conversation:
Me: But it should be 99p
He: Nope, it’s a regular one.
Me: It was the smallest cup.
He: No it’s not.
Me: But there aren’t any smaller.
He: I don’t care, you filled regular one, you have to pay for regular.
Me: But I don’t want regular, I want small.
He: So you should fill small cup.
Me: So what can I do if there aren’t any small cups there?
He: (after heavy thinking) You can pour out some of this coke
Me: But how much?
He: I don’t know
Me: So just take this back, and give me a small cup.
He: (gave me coffe cup and poured away 0.5 l of coke)
Me: (went to the tap, filled it with coke, came back to till and paid).
Whenever it looks like I am going to be faced with a difficult conversation, I simply shrug my shoulders and say “nie mówiÄ™ Angielski”.
