It’s not often that ‘posh’ and ‘petrol station’ are used in the same sentence, but it happened recently when a journalist described a visit to Tom Highland’s award-winning Childerley Gate site near Cambridge.
“I visited a posh petrol station and enjoyed a curry-filled baguette for under £5,” says Katie Green, senior multimedia reporter for Cambridgeshire Live, a website that regularly does food reviews.
In her report, Green continues: “While most petrol stations have a shop where you can pick up a soggy sandwich and fizzy drink, the Childerley Gate petrol station offers much more. After I parked up, I wandered in and was faced with a deli and farm shop.” Green had never come across a forecourt with a farm shop before so was delighted.
She praised the award-winning site for the smell of the fresh bread, the ‘nearly too hard to resist’ Cambridge Luxury Bakers and the Co-op range.
Of the fresh bread, supplied by Hambleton Bakery, she says: “The loaves were large and smelt like they’d just come out of the oven.”
Green’s goal though was to pick up some lunch so she headed to the deli counter to look at the baguettes.“I scoured the menu and there were a lot of different filling combinations on offer. There was the stereotypical BLT or ham and cheese, or some a bit more ‘out there’ such as beef and horseradish or Italian chicken. The one that got all of my attention was the creamy chicken tikka baguette. Anything that offers a curry filling, I’m sold,” she says.
She heaped lots of praise on the baguette: lots of filling, slightly spicy and the bread was crispy and ‘tasted fresh’. Green opted for a banana milkshake in a glass bottle to wash it all down.
The Highland Group’s operation received further praise for the prices: £4.35 for the baguette and £1.60 for the drink.“Overall, a lunch for under £6 that filled me up for my 40-minute drive back home hit all the right spots. I consider Childerley Gate one of the poshest petrol stations I have stopped at. If you are near Cambridge at any point, it’s worth a visit just for the smell of the fresh bread,” she tells readers of Cambridgeshire Live.
Retailer Tom Highland was delighted with the publicity, especially as these reviewers come in unannounced so report on exactly what they see in-store.“It’s the second time Cambridgeshire Live have been to the site in three years. It’s good that they come in unannounced and it’s nice to get the recognition locally,” he says.
