To drive through or not to drive through? That is the question. Surely, eating in a car seat is bad for everything: paunch, lazy legs, car interior… So, even before I have to make up my mind about what to scoff, I’m wondering whether to park up and go in or just stay behind the wheel.
Such is my dilemma as I approach Pret A Manger’s first drive-thru, which opened on 5 June at Oakwood Gate service station in Birchwood – near, though not actually at, junction 21 on the M6. The other thing on my mind, rather than squished pastries or slightly burnt-tasting coffee (the two things I normally associate with Pret), is flat-pack furniture.
For it was at another motorway service area not far from here – Burtonwood on the M62 – that Ikea opened its first UK store in 1987. This part of the North West was always full of pioneers: canal-builders, mine-sinkers, railway-builders. It seemed natural that the most modish interiors shop, as Ikea was back then, should make its British debut in the Lancashire-Cheshire borders.
Pret, however, is a different beast. Like most people, I discovered the brand in cities – London, mainly – and later at railway stations and airports. It was where I got a caffeine-and-carb fix before travelling or going to work.
