Big Chef, Little chef..

xb8browney said:
Watched this last night and thought it was great seems like Little Chef needs food like what you would find in a JD Weatherspoons or Yates something like that cheapish pub food.
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I also thought this. Reasonable quality at a reasonable price. Nothing special, but it fills you up after you've been on the A303 for 2 hours.

arknor said:
er do they really?
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Yes, I think they do.
 
LOL, I watched this last night, was funny how he was slagging Little Chef off, its on tonight again aint it? looks a good one.
 
I thought the boil in the bad scrambled eggs were an alright idea, if they refuse to have pans then what other option is there?
Dunno what the big deal was about them being served with tea smoked salmon, especially when the management said they couldn't taste the tea... It's those touches that make it seem "poncy" to the regulars at Little Chef.

If they'd just served the lancashire hotpot and not told anyone what was in it, there'd be far less complaints.

An alright programme but that manager guy just seems like such a tool. It's clear that the menu just needs better quality versions of existing options. A hawaian burger that isn't a dried piece of **** with a giant pineapple maybe. Or portions that don't come in a 60 litre bucket....

Edit: Can't have helped that many of the "restaurants" seemed to be located next to Burger Kings also...
 
Jonny69 said:
Exactly, people's demands have changed and most places have adapted to suit, but not Little Chef evidently. They are still a 1980 Wimpy grill.
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I agree with the first part of your post, but they are nothing like a Wimpy, either now or in the 1980s. Wimpy have always been about cooking fresh ingredients from scratch and taking their time over it. You typically wait 5-10 minutes for a Wimpy burger to be cooked for you rather than Little Chef's '3 minutes is too long!'. Wimpy burgers are nothing like that hawaiian 'burger' in Little Chef.

How dare you **** the mighty Wimpy off!!! ;)
 
I think there main problem is the perception they are a rip off.

The one closest to me, only seems to have luxury cars parked outside.

Or sometimes there is one car outside, I'm not sure I'd ever go into a table service restaurant like that and be the only customer it would be weird.

Not been in one for years, but they used to be good and I loved the pancakes.
 
I watched this & thought Pegler was a ****. I'm looking forward to the next instalment when whatshisface tells him.
For food they could keep the same menu for me but just cook it properly & serve me with a smile in a Clean environment.
Little Chefs used to be the Clean, Slightly up market greasy spoon, Nowadays it's a Slum with poorly cooked & terribly presented food in a complete crap hole.
I'm Gutted as I used to Love an Olympic, These days I wouldn't even pull into there car park.
 
This was good viewing - can't wait for the next episode!

However, as people have already said, the sheer amount of management-babble the Little Chef bosses came out with was laughable. They kept going on and on about wanting Heston to use his creativity and flair to produce great dishes, and that they were willing to do practically anything he wanted, yet when Heston produced said dishes, they barely tasted them before writing them off. Even the boil in the bag scrambled eggs were deemed too time-consuming!

Its a shame that such a well-known brand is being so blatently ruined by upper management. I've been to Little Chefs a few times and enjoyed the fry-ups. If minimum preparation time is so important, I don't see what else the company can produce.

DailyGeek said:
Bring back Happy Eater!
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I first had sweetcorn relich there. Lovely stuff!
 
peige said:
What a complete twit Ian Pegler is, I couldn't believe the rubbish he was coming out with.. a mixture of management babble and complete nonsensical rubbish !
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Agreed, he has know idea what he has or how to improve, he's just string buzz words together that are meaningless.

I'm sure this is slight "staged" to make it an interesting programme, otherwise it would be like watching grass grow!

The food is Little Chef is revolting, they need just to go back to basics, better quality ingredients that are "cooked" rather than just "nuked". Back in the day there wasn't really any choice, now there's a huge amount on offer to the motorist.
 
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I thought the most telling bit was when Ian wouldn't tell HP the GP figures. Made me think they use the absolute cheapest ingredients, also when you see the burger, wasn't really a nice thick juicy burger i would want to eat.

There are regulars on the menu that the little chef people don't really want to change as they have been on the menu for the bettrer part of 50 years. HB's best way to approach this is to refine down the number of dishes on offer. get rid of some of the pasta and world food options and concentrate on 20 - 30 different dish's rather than the 70 they say they can do now.

Change the quality of the ingredients. A burger should be thick and contain a lot of meat. So should the sausages. Reduce the markup's on each meal and hope that with the increased quality you could get more sales. A couple of flashy show dishes with HB's name on would give people an impression of a fancy new menu.

Changing the image of the place would be a good way to go aswell. Clean the places properly, get rid of broken furniture, and treat it more like restaurent. Remember the torn seats and spiders webs above where they were sitting.
 
Capn' $qu!ff said:
The managers an idiot for hiring Heston and Hestons an Idiot to think the general public would be impressed by his minimal poncy approach to food.
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I don't think his food is poncy, but there's a place (and a budget) for such stuff. I thought his previous series finding the absolute best way to cook dishes regardless of time and expense was fascinating.

He is severely misguided if he thinks the general public will want a lamb's tongue hotpot with oysters for lunch, however.
 
that Ian pegler just irrated me, as MD of the company he couldn't even give heston some figures to work with, if he can't do that then what is he doing in that job?

Heston is too far out there for little chef, at the end of the day it's a rest stop for people on car journeys, who want something to eat and get on their way.

Keep it simple, classic british dishes!

I still really like their Olympic breakfast! its the best thing they do.
 
I'd rather go hungry than eat in a little chef.
Foods crap, environment is dirty and miserable service. A quick service is a drive through IMO. You stop at a restaurant to be served, not rushed.
 
Although did anyone think HB was a bit lame when he said he'd had people literally cry at his sound of the sea dish because it was emotional.

I'm sure he said it was seafood with an ipod loaded with seagull sounds? :p
 
Emlyn_Dewar said:
Edit: Can't have helped that many of the "restaurants" seemed to be located next to Burger Kings also...
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Yeah, I think "Little Chef" did a deal with Burger King some time ago letting them setup a "Burger King" in their restaurants, they thought it was a "different market" as people going to Little Chef wanted a sit down meal rather than a "quick burger". The fact that the Burger Kind burger is about 100% better than anything on the Little Chef menu must have gone over their stupid heads ;)
 
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