Gloucester Services is famed for its fantastic Farm Shop and Deli and has become a bit of a destination stop on the M5 for tourists passing through and locals alike.

I am not sure that a service station on the motorway should be somewhere that we are all heading off to for a special trip but when we are driving down south to Cornwall and Devon I think that it is fair game to stop on the way

Often we have had breakfast here and it hasn’t always been the best or the prettiest, but considering that they supposedly use all the top produce from their farm shop you think that it should be the best.

Today we had arrived bang on 9am, the trays of breakfast fodder were full and looked like they had just rocked out of the kitchen so we took a chance and went for the breakfast

The options were 5, 7, or 9 items with the selection being sausage, bacon, eggs, bean, tomato, mushroom, black pudding, some sort of bubble and squeak and I believe even haggis (although I may have imagined that), You also get toast with your breakfast as well

As I approached the counter I drew a quick breath, pondered my options taking in the look of the food in each tray before taking a calculated punt on my breakfast choices.

The chap behind the counter was ready plate in one hand, tongs in the other, he was keen. I took a nod to the Gods before looking him square in the eye as I made my first, second, and third selections, using up 5 items in one gushing flow

”Two sausage, Two bacon, and a fried egg” please

Tongs into trays, meat dispatched to plate, Fried Egg retrieved through hatch from counter

”That’s Five, what else”

“Black pudding and some beans but don’t …….slop …. the beans …. all over” the last parts of the suggestion falling into the ether as bean juice went everywhere 🙂

To be fair once I had rearranged my plate, mopped most of the bean juice off the egg and located the black pudding from under the egg, it did look a decent plate of breakfast

The sausages were pretty good, nice and porky, not very heavily flavoured and cooked well so that there was a proper crisp skin. We did ask for the sausages that looked the better cooked from the tray and that was what we got. If you liked yours paler you could have asked for those. I don’t know why you would but you had the option.

Bacon wise those tongs could not count and 2 rashers became 3, possible 3 and a half. Certainly not complaining and the fat was nice and crispy too.

The beans added for wetness were acceptable but like sand after a day at the beach they had got everywhere

I liked the black pudding as it was soft, a little creamy in texture and had a decent earthy taste as well. The egg was cooked well enough, the yolk just about runny and it did not seem unduly upset by its earlier bath in bean juice

If you squinted and really believed then the toast was just slightly brown and one notch past a slice of white bread on the scale. I think that the toaster was having a pretty easy day of it. To be fair it did its job as something to mop up the copious bean juice and that was all I was asking of it today.

Summing up Today was a good day from the breakfast troops at Gloucester services and a plate that set us up well for the journey ahead down to the South Coast

No doubt we will be here again next time we travel through at breakfast time 🙂

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Located on the M5 (between junc. 12 & 11a) , Brookthorpe, Gloucester, Gloucestershire, GL4 0DN

you can check them out on their website