Motorway Pub

Another Campari for the road, sir? Non-alcoholic of course!

The motorway service station had become a ubiquitous part of British life by the 1970s. In 1975 Mecca Ltd saw what they thought was a gap in the market and opened a pub at Trowell services on the M1 in Nottinghamshire. Obviously non-alcoholic drinks were the order of the day as Bev Smith reports (although worryingly he finds plenty of bottles of spirits dumped outside) but is a Swiss made non-alcoholic lager really the tipple that the UK's lorry drivers have been craving?

When they were run by Mecca Ltd the services at Trowell were entirely Robin Hood themed with the pub being named the Friar Tuck-In. When the services were sold to Granada in 1977 these locally themed innovations were removed.