The Kennford South branch was a former Little Chef restaurant located on the southbound side of the A38 near Kennford, Devon.
Address and Onsite Information[]
ADDRESS: A38 Southbound, Devon Expressway, Kennford, Exeter, Devon, EX6 7XS
ONSITE FACILITIES: Haldon Forest Diner
History[]
Built as a dual sided service area, Kennford Services can trace its roots back to the early 1970s. In 1970, Forte had just merged with Trusthouses, the owners of Little Chef at the time, to form Trusthouse Forte and had big plans for Little Chef. At this point two top executives, Michael Pickard, the former Trusthouses MD and Allen Jones, the former Little Chef MD, decided to leave the company and set up on their own. Pickard set up Happy Eater as a Little Chef rival and Jones tried to form a company called Mr Chef. However, Forte complained the name was too similar to Little Chef so Jones went back to the drawing board and asked his employees to come up with a name. The one he picked was "Welcome Break". By the mid 1970s there were 10 Welcome Break sites with Kennford (known back then as Haldon Hill) being number 6. In the late 70s Pickard and Jones joined forces and all Welcome Breaks, including Kennford, were re-branded as Happy Eater.
By 1994, Forte had decided that Little Chef was a better brand than Happy Eater and decided to rebrand a majority of Happy Eaters as Little Chef. This programme lasted 3 years, by which time Granada had taken over Forte, with both Kennford restaurants becoming Little Chefs around 1995/96.
Unfortunately, in 2007, Little Chefs parents, who by now were People's Restaurant Group, hit financial problems and the brand was taken by new owners, venture capitalists R Capital. Not all the sites transferred over and Kennford South was one of the 41 to be closed in 2007, leaving its northbound partner to soldier on alone although it later closed in 2012.
Soon after the demise of the Little Chef, it became an independent cafe known as the Haldon Forest Diner which amazingly still sports many of the interior features from the Happy Eater days. After the demolition of Bere Regis in the early 2020s, it is possibly the only ex-Happy Eater restaurant to still retain its wooden ceiling.
