Service station outlets and tea

[IzzyHandsIsMySpiritAnimal]

Coming back from holiday today and stopped at the services in need of a cup of tea.
Burger King didn't do any hot drinks
Nor did Taco Bell
Nor did KFC
Nor did Subway

Eventually managed to get one at Starbucks but it wasn't on the menu - only iced tea or 10000 different coffee options.

I can't be the only person who wants a cuppa, surely? Why do so few places have it?

Burger King, KFC and subway usually all do tea, and services usually have WHS with Costa machines that do tea now, so I think you were just unlucky!

Greggs

Maybe it’s just the place you stopped?

I’ve always managed to get a tea in a service station - Pret, M&S, WHSmith, Costa, Starbucks. Not tried any of the other ones you mention.

I think it might have been.

Definitely no hot drinks on the screens that you have to order from. I am curious as to the reasoning. It csnt be price-oriented as almost all of them sell chips and burgers (or very similar).

I thought motorway services were legally obliged to provide hot drinks? As well as loos and parking.

They did provide hot drinks. Just not every single outlet.

I don't know.
I think there's been a big change in the last year?or at least, along the route we take. The range of outlets has changed, and of those outlets, a number of them don't do hot drinks.
It's obviously not impossible to walk from one to the other in search of my preferred caffeine hit, but it is frustrating to have to so so, when previously we could get everything from one outlet.
More frustrating for wheelchair users as the touchscreens in the places we stopped at seemed to all be at the same height and were all in close proximity.

I probably spend more time than necessary overthinking these things but I imagine that it may be the case that younger people don't like hot drinks as much, and where they do, coffee has become more popular.

If you can bare to watch this awful recording

as a tea drinker I hear you loud and proud. The trick with Starbucks is to ask for two tea bags their tea is weak as piss and mugs massive.
I miss the old big welcome breaks with the big tea station.

No I don’t think that’s it. Have you spoken to the staff in these outlets to double check that they don’t do hot drinks? Are you certain it’s not that you’ve missed them on the touch screens?

Maybe there is just more profit in those over complicated fancy coffee orders?

If you buy a bog standard tea then it will be obviously be overpriced, but not as overpriced as a chai-latte-double-espresso-macchiato-whip-oat-milk-foam-pumpkin-ice?

I generally have a stash of those individually packed teabags about my person so could just ask for hot water, perhaps tuck a few of those in your car for next time?

There’s no point asking for hot water from a coffee place, it’ll be 85C max even before it hits a cold mug and there’s no tea bag that can turn that abomination into tea.

Definitely not on the touch screens. Staff were running around like the proverbial blye-arsed flies fulfilling existing orders but a quick look behind the counter showed only food and cold drinks. One of them was just a drinks dispenser at the counter with the various things 'on tap' which you could get once you were given a cup.

I'm not a novice to using service stations but we tend to go the same route every year and the provision at the station we stop at most frequently has definitely changed. I wondered whether it was a more general thing but it seems I've just been unfortunate.

As it was, I did manage to get my precious caffeine hit, so no harm done.