I agree with you entirely Fido but, unfortunately we are now living in an age of health & safety and the dreaded VAT, which has killed off most of the small transport cafeswhen I was in the army we used to stop at loads of transport cafes and they were usually good and clean, the old Busy Bee was a great place and was a regular stop off on the way home at the weekend, mind you I am going back to the 60s now, I know that there used to be races between there and the Ace cafe then for the motorbikes, down the North circular.
I think the main killer of the transport cafe was the Mc Donalds, Kentucky, and burger outlets, we never had burgers in the sixties and the general health of the population was better, now you see all these overweight, obese folk and its pretty obvious that the majority live on this junk.
Regards TTJohn