Oh, the dilemmas of fine dining. Should it be mushy peas or regular? Let’s go for the bright green ones. And perhaps a glass of Chenin Blanc to accompany your lunch, sir? Certainly not; the only proper accompaniment to fish and chips is a large mug of tea and a slice of white bread and butter. Of course, sir; the tea will be £1.59 but the bread comes automatically.

This does not feel like an establishment on the brink of collapse. The restaurant is spotless and bright, the staff attentive without being overbearing. The meal comes within five minutes of ordering. It consists of a Himalaya of chips and a haddock the size of a sturgeon, with half a fresh lemon to squeeze over it, all for £6.99.

Shame about the industrial batter with which it was enrobed in Young’s frozen food factory. Still, top marks for the Heinz ketchup and HP Sauce arriving in proper bottles instead of those infuriating little sachets, which never contain enough for those of us hooked on the many derivatives of spirit vinegar.

Are we really in the Little Chef on the A127 in Essex halfway between the East End and Southend, that road of life for the aspiring Cockney? We are, and it is a surprisingly good advertisement for a supposedly failing chain of roadside caffs, a world away from a greasy spoon. Perhaps the weak link is that, on a Wednesday with many motorists returning from New Year breaks, only a dozen of the 60-odd seats are occupied. Mind you, the rather more upmarket pub and restaurant next door isn’t much busier.

When Little Chef proposed to slim down the familiar Fat Charlie logo in 2004, there was such an uproar from loyal customers that Charlie stayed fat. But one feature of that attempted revamp towards a healthier image is that menus now include salads and the sausage meat is free-range.

But ordering salad in a Little Chef is like asking for pork scratchings at the Ritz. What the chain does best, and which has silenced carloads of starving children since 1958, is the all-day breakfast.

Top of the range, at £6.99, is the Olympic, built from bacon, sausage, two eggs, mushrooms, sauté potatoes, tomato, fried bread and beans. This may be suitable for a ravenous giant but it is too thrombotic a threat these days to the sedentary and health-conscious. Yet Little Chef claims to sell 13 million sausages and 12 million rashers of bacon a year. Not all to the same driver, of course. They sold some to John Major; the former prime minister famously once stopped to refuel at a Happy Eater, the former sister chain to Little Chef.

When Sam Alper, a caravan manufacturer, opened his first 11-seater Little Chef in Reading 49 years ago, he was aiming for something a cut above the lorry driver’s transport caff, and took as his model the informal roadside diners he had seen in the US.

The chain had little serious competition for many years, but latterly its market share is thought to have been nibbled away by Burger King and Kentucky Fried Chicken. If true, this destroys any argument that the motorist has diverted to a healthy-eating route.

A tired image seems to be Little Chef’s problem, and personal experience suggests that not all branches are up to the standard of that on the A127. However, the mountain range of french fries went untouched, although the haddock was deep-mined from within its leaden coating. The waiter was most concerned that the meal had not been up to the usual high standard. “Not at all,” this diner insisted. “It’s just that I’ve got to squeeze back behind my steering wheel. But I did eat the peas.”

The 1958 menu

English breakfast, including black pudding and baked beans and tea or coffee

Fruit squash (orange or lemon barley)

Griddled ham

Poached eggs

Griddled egg sandwich

Bacon sandwich

Sausage, egg and bacon sandwich

Hamburger

Range of pies

Soft drinks (Coca Cola or R Whites lemonade)

Source: David Lawrence, Little Chef historian

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