Epigram
Active Member
For many years I have visited a transport cafe in Kent on the A227 just north of M26 J2a.
It was a basic no frills cafe that served a good breakfast or lunch and a mug of tea at a reasonable price that put motorway services to shame.
It changed little over 50 years except for the odd lick of paint and the removal of the aluminium Lyons fruit pie dishes which were used as ash trays before smoking was banned inside.
In summer the car park would be a rutted dust bowl that would wreck suspensions and in winter the puddles would join to make getting from the car to the entrance a navigational challenge through great lakes.
I started going there when I was a teenager when I cycled with friends around the weald of Kent. We would drop in for a cuppa before we continued up Wrotham or Vigo Hill depending on our mood and energy.
Later I would have a breakfast or brunch when working on construction sites for the M20, M25 and M26 motorways.
Some 25 years ago I introduced Mrs Epigram to the place while on our way to Dover. It was winter, the puddles were as big as ever and her reaction was along the lines of “ You really know how to treat a girl don’t you!”
Over the intervening years she came to appreciate and expect/demand a bacon and mushroom sandwich with doorstep slices of white bread some three hours into our journey to the ferry.
Alas the cafe is no more. It has been demolished in the name of progress. The end of an era.
Such places, along with layby trailer cafes are becoming fewer but they have so much more about them than the sterile service areas typical of the UK
Can anyone recommend an equivalent stop close to the M26 about an hour or so from Dover to prevent the stomach rumbling after an early start?
It was a basic no frills cafe that served a good breakfast or lunch and a mug of tea at a reasonable price that put motorway services to shame.
It changed little over 50 years except for the odd lick of paint and the removal of the aluminium Lyons fruit pie dishes which were used as ash trays before smoking was banned inside.
In summer the car park would be a rutted dust bowl that would wreck suspensions and in winter the puddles would join to make getting from the car to the entrance a navigational challenge through great lakes.
I started going there when I was a teenager when I cycled with friends around the weald of Kent. We would drop in for a cuppa before we continued up Wrotham or Vigo Hill depending on our mood and energy.
Later I would have a breakfast or brunch when working on construction sites for the M20, M25 and M26 motorways.
Some 25 years ago I introduced Mrs Epigram to the place while on our way to Dover. It was winter, the puddles were as big as ever and her reaction was along the lines of “ You really know how to treat a girl don’t you!”
Over the intervening years she came to appreciate and expect/demand a bacon and mushroom sandwich with doorstep slices of white bread some three hours into our journey to the ferry.
Alas the cafe is no more. It has been demolished in the name of progress. The end of an era.
Such places, along with layby trailer cafes are becoming fewer but they have so much more about them than the sterile service areas typical of the UK
Can anyone recommend an equivalent stop close to the M26 about an hour or so from Dover to prevent the stomach rumbling after an early start?
