What are the opening hours of Motorway Service Areas?
All day, every day. Even on bank holidays such as Christmas and New Year. By law, Motorway Services areas have to offer food, parking and toilets 24 hours a day, with no closures at all. In practice, the 24-hour food can sometimes be no more than a burger bar which stays open all night, and you might need to cross over to the other side of the motorway to get it (where a service area has twin sites either side of a motorway, linked by a footbridge). But you will always be able to get petrol or diesel and stop for a toilet break, even if the food isn’t very appetising at 3.00am! • Why is the food so expensive? This is related to the previous question. The operators have to pay all the running costs associated with the service area, including the construction and maintenance of the slip roads onto/off the motorway. And they have to keep the area open all the time, even when there aren’t many customers, as well as provide free facilities such as toilets and short-term parking. So they nee
