Roadchef Motorways in County Durham

Had 2 coffees and snacks, stayed 2hrs 53mins, got a £60 fine in post a week later, shame guys, bad form, enjoy ripping customers off....

Clean, plus staff are very helpful. Toilets are always clean plus the shower s my favourite service's to park up for the night

My car broke down on the A1 the other evening RAC could not fix at the road side so they took me to these services to wait for a recovery truck the manager Donna could not have been more helpful and friendly she could see that i was on my own and I was there for a few hours so she kept checking up on me offering drinks and chatting was good to see such a caring attitude and she should be applauded for her kindness

Totally unacceptable: reasonably busy, two staff. It took 10 minutes to get my coffee latte etc. The two staff were untrained to handle this volume of business and maintain any semblance of a standard. I visit quite a few Costas and like my coffee. This time I had to return my coffee: it was luke warm with a bitter after taste. I complained and was given a fresh coffee but it had the same taste. Have Costa changed their coffee?

Stopped here for a break and a coffee we found Costa and queued up the place was Covid safe having hand sanitizer and wearing masks.Staff were not very friendly the facilities were good though toilets clean

When I come to a McDonald’s I don’t expect the staff to be brain surgeons. However, a smidgen of common sense wouldn’t go amiss. This McDonald’s truly has the best collection of imbeciles I have ever came across. Needless to say I won’t be back, after the conversation I had with the rude manager Laura. As a homosexual man I thought me and the lesbian manage could see a common ground and resolve the situation. Instead she closed the drive through window and said “wait there all day for all I care” NOT GOOD ENOUGH!

Small off the motorway service area which provides a service for a rest, drink and bite to eat to to break up your journey.

We popped in here for a quick meal and rest from a long drive. Wish we hadn't bothered. The speed of service in the Costa was lamentable and it was expensive and not very good. Admittedly teh site is under a degree of renovation, but that is no excuse for the poor service - everyone was multi tasking and waiting to use the same equipment - it would be better if tehre was one person taking payments and others doing the serving. Don't bother with the packed sandwiches - expensive and poor quality!

Decided to stop here for a break as we headed home from a visit to Scotland. What a mistake! First stop the toilets - 1 cubicle filthy, 1 without a toilet seat and two remaining were locked (with water running out the door). The main hallway was crowded so as the women in my party had not dissimilar comments about the standards in the ladies, we jumped in the car and headed off in the hope of giving our business to one of the other services further south. The whole area around this junction is being redeveloped and if my experience today is typical, one can only hope the service area will be flattened and rebuilt as it is beyond redemption in my opinion. I often wonder how many motorway accidents occur through drivers wanting to bypass Britain's pathetic service areas?

This motorway service station must be the worst ever. Always queuing to exit. Roadchef customers cutting through the fuel forecourt so Shell customers can't get in to fill up because Roadchef customers block the forecourt. Signage is useless, that is if you can find any. White road signage is a waste of time. Next to no lighting on an evening so you miss the entry to the main services. Someone will probably say it's because of the building works but it was like this year's before the building works. And to cap it off they are introducing a MacDonald's drive through, so that will probably more queuing to exit the services.

I’m not quite sure how or why but this place has become one of our regular stop offs when we’re on the A1. This time you’re greeted by roadworks on the main road but they weren’t disruptive. There’s very little (if any) family/baby parking so you have to squeeze into a space then try and unload junior. The McDonald’s has won several awards for the slowest ever service and the longest queues! The toilets smell (not in a nice summer meadow type way) and the baby changing is woeful. This is 2019 not 1950 and it shouldn’t be acceptable. I really must try and find another stop off point but for now, this place is pants!! Big baggy bloomers!

Confusing approach. We missed the turn off at first and ended up at the petrol station so had to go out and enter again. Very limited outlets-WH Smith, Mcdonalds and Costa and all rather dated and dingy. I bought a standard chicken mayonnaise sandwich from WH Smith and it cost £4. Shocking. My husband said the men's toilets were smelly. Would avoid in future.

It’s handy enough for travel break & the service was ok but £3.19 for a Latte Primo is taking the proverbial. You do it because you’re on holiday I suppose but next time maybe take a bigger flask of your own.

I have visited the restaurant many times, and it is really friendly, convenient, and the staff are hard working. Its an ideal spot to have a break before long trips, which is absolutely great. I praise the restaurant and the services here very much and look forward to my next visit.

Great to stop off for a quick coffee Staff friendly & polite.

Surprised at some of the earlier reviews as my findings were quite different. With lots of time spent on Motorway Services over the years, I was actually quite impressed with this one. Looks like it has recently been upgraded and it is pretty smart despite being relatively small. Nice to find only two of the Big Brands (McDonalds & Costa) which may help improve my perception as I detest being faced with a mall of fast food outlets, all which are packed out. The two here, seemed to be of a higher standard than their counterparts in busier areas. I suspect the reduced numbers of customers may be due to the fact that this area is ‘off the motorway‘. More attractive in many ways from its bigger brothers and consequently more likely to be attractive to me in future.

On our way home from a lovely week in Edinburgh we made a stop off at the Roadchef in Durham. Unfortunately for me I was totally reliant on my husband to get into the building as the doors aren’t automatic. I find this unacceptable in this day and age. Life is hard enough without having to bang in a door or wait for someone to appear so you can ask for them to open the door so you can enter the building. Then do the same again when you are ready to leave the building. This is a shame because once you are in they have a lovely spacious Costa Barista plus other shops for you to wander around. Is it not time you looked at other customers besides the ablebodied ones you have?

Food poor as well as staff would not return i know that you cant expect the service as in a good motorway services.

well typing review whilst stuck in another daily traffic jam in the shell forecort again one of the worst service stations to exit during busy times due to the right turn on a busy A road. OK McDonald's WH Smith and Costa all be it more expensive than high street

These services are apallingly bad. Roadworks were ongoing and it took an hour to exit from the car park. DONT GO THERE.

First of all let me say we only stopped at Durham because the Scotch Corner signs are so poor we missed those services. And there was a nice big grassy area where we could exercise the dog on her lead. BUT the car park was...

So - firstly it's got Costa so the coffee and snacks here are the same as any other Costa. The staff were friendly and helpful - and the service relatively quick. So everything fine. Getting out onto the road is badly designed but given that the next services going north are the infamously bad Washington services I'd rather spend time in my car getting out than stopping there.

Quick stop off for costa coffee and McDonald’s Both were fine, lovely staff and place was very clean :)

Defiantly showing its age service station / McDonald's / Costa and WH Smith's

A typical Costa with inflated prices thanks to the captive audience that is a Service Area. Nice to see they had their act together though, as last time I was here, the queuing system was pretty poor.

This is a useful if unexciting and rather dated service station. It means a short detour off the A1. As the A1 is being made a motorway in this part of the world maybe it will be improved?

As other recent reviewers have said, this service is station is very poorly designed for traffic flow. I have queued for ages on various occasions to get back into the traffic system when leaving it. I recently had to call here as there was no choice and I needed to stop, but the stop was quicker than the time it took to get back on to the motorway. Once inside the place it has the usual coffee and casual food outlets and a general stationary/gift shop that has some interesting things at reasonable prices.

This is a vast improvement over a crappy sandwich from a petrol station. Grab a burger and a coffee, stretch your legs and take a break after a long drive.

Very bad paring, small bays and congested and that's just the parking. The same applies inside, it suffers from a bad design. Exiting the car park to get back onto the M1 Northbound took ages. Again another bad design.

If you wanted to design a service station that was designed to suffer from gridlock & make the visit majority of motorists take their life in their hands leaving it look no further than here for a template. Other than the existence of some toilets...

Visited on way home from Edinburgh, i was a little wary as it was one of those services you had to get off southbound A1 go over the motorway to get to it. Hardly any parking and VERY pricey (£4 for a sandwich). At moto...

Bad Friday ! Do not even commit yourself by leaving the motorway. Once you are in, there is no escape. You're trapped ! Long queues in and out of the car park, AND in the services, if you have found a parking place.Food ? Usual motorway stuff, poor and high priced.

Lots of traffic and people as school holidays but still very quick and pleasant service only downside was trying to get back out of services as exiting via petroleum exit and lorry park

Paramos en estos servicios durante nuestro viaje al sur.

Demasiado pequeño y con una mala filtración congestionada, y salga a trabajar así como una zona de servicio de la autopista. El problema es que una vez que se apagó la autopista, que están comprometidos a seguir en para salir, y luego las colas son igual de mal. Café y sándwiches son luego otro azote

Don't park in their car park for more than 2hrs as the cost is more than a hotel room for the night

Decent coffee which is a Costa .the service area is small and slightly off the motorway. OK for a short break from driving

Mid morning drink/snack break on coach journey. Service area busy. Went in Costa Coffee. Nice cup of tea served with a tea pot & milk jug. Usual selection of cakes & biscuits. Served with a smile! Toilets clean. Can't complain as have had far worse experiences on motorway services.

Called in one evening on our way home for something to eat. The services were busy and a bit chaotic int he car park. The seating area around McDonalds was a little untidy and could have done with someone going out and checking the tables. Food on the floor etc. Not the best experience but not the worst,

This is just a dreadful place. Called in lunchtime today. Traffic jam in car park caused by poor drivers taking twould places, heavy lorries trying to turn onto main road,. Toilets very busy too many people milling about slow, getting in people's way.....Costa coffee was OK.but nothing soecial. Nothing to write home about.

Clean and tidy , everything you need , from food drinks petrol , coffee nice , welcome break, toilets clean

Been here a few times and is a good service station, but is very small and can be a bit crammed when busy. But there is costa, Macdonalds and WH Smith's so can get all sorts of items if needed for trip, or even a quick break.

MacDonald visit positive experience quick service and friendly staff Christine very friendly and customer focused Would ask why 20p extra cost from standard MacDonald for regular coffee ? Don't seem to get anything different and furniture not as good and no computer terminals for kids WH Smith's staff again friendly but why the price hike from the high street ? What is extra And the exit onto a very busy A road is just as nerve wracking as previous reviews may be the inflated prices are going into a traffic light / roundabout fund lol

It's an enjoyable place for a stop between Scotland and the south of England. There are lovely shops and cafes

We stopped off here for a break.Toilets are clean.We had a coffee from Costa Coffee.Costa Coffee was busy. Tables was clean and empty no trays (nice to see as at most motorway stops always dirty tables)The lady that served me was friendly and cheerful.Highly recommended and I will stop off here again.

One of the better service stations. This one has a McDonalds, a Costa and a WH Smiths. It's all nicely laid out. It also has the world's longest and most tortuous path to the Gents. Bizarre!!

MacDonald improved significantly since refurbished and toilets just upgraded to better standard . Costa still won't used since service declined 12month ago so no comment Still a great place to visit for the confident risk taking driver pulling off site is still the same adventure morning mass traffic later on fast oncoming cars often good place for watching bumps and collisions Solution traffic lights or roundabout seems to have escaped the council and roadchef owners .

If you can avoid this place then do so! Terrible road signs that were all wrong. HGV, car parking, coach park all signposted wrong and then on the way out the exit/services sign is in the wrong place and nearly caused a few bumps. Will not be stopping off for a break here again it's stress central

The McDonalds was about average and the Costa was very nice. There were kids hanging about in the entrance which was a bit disconcerting as they were completely in the way and had no intention of moving on, but that is not particularly the fault of the services. Clean facilities and a WHSmith, plenty of parking and easy to find.

Poor food choiceDirty buildingMale toilets disgusting and never cleanedCosta device was shocking. Argued with customers. Worst Costa ever come acrossWh smith talked amongst selves while serving customer and never even acknowledged them NEVER RETURN. DON'T GO HERE

Just went in for a quick coffee at McDonalds - which was fine but then the trouble started. The car park was jammed packed with card trying to get in and out. The other motorists were courteous and doing their best to help but the traffic hardly moved.This service station is not immediately off the motorway, but off a busy A road. The junction from the service station is not traffic light controlled and it was very difficult to leave which lead to the long, slow moving queues which snaked around the whole of the car park. Unless you like traffic jams avoid this service station at peak times.

This is a small service station in a nice landscaped area. It has a McD's, Costa, WHSmiths and a BP station alongside a Days Inn hotel. Its clean and pleasant enough but a few things bug. WhSmiths what on earth do they actually do? Are they a newsagent, tobacconist, confectioner, bookseller or general all round retailer of tat? The McD's operates an order and collect, place your order at one till and pay, collect at another (think Argos). Whilst this is logical in reducing queues in a tight limited space it doesnt lend itself to quick service. My order was taken quickly, politely and efficently by a crew member then I waited 6 minutes for my order (it was easy to time as it was on my receipt). Now if this was for a 'meal', a wrap or a large order then fair enough but i'd ordered a 1/4 with cheese - a bog standard sole item off the menu. The chap in front was similairly getting a coffee. Yes just a coffee and was i was imagining waiting a similiar length of time. The logic of the system is that all people wait their turn, (though this flies in the face of McD's famed 'quick service') but surely you'd get the coffee, the sole burger order out of the way quickly and reduce the queue for others. Its a mad system and not one I like. Unlikely to use the McD's there again. THE POOR SERVICE RATING IS FOR THE SYSTEM NOT THE STAFF MEMBER.

We stopped here on our way up to Northumberland & wish we hadn't. The car park was certainly not big enough to handle the volume of traffic & parking spaces were too small for even small cars. The facilities were way below par & not sufficient for the amount of people that needed to use them. This was especially true of the toilets, which were difficult to find (Hidden in a corner) & looked like they were in need of a refit. Also exiting the service station took a lot longer (20 minutes), due to the poor design of the exit road, which required motorists to run the gauntlet of crossing a busy main road, while avoiding on-coming traffic. We found the whole episode quite stressful & one we will never repeat again, as this service station is not really up to the job of handling too many people.

Seems to be improved a tiny bit from previous reviews. Floor is still sticky. Ventilation is very noisy. Won't go if there is another choice.

Use as an opportunity for a toilet stop and refreshment top up. Has a hotel, WHS, Costa @ McDonald's along with petrol station. Clean and tidy, all you need. Just off the A1 easy to get in & out

The main restaurants (Costa and McDonalds) are clean enough, but the rest of the building is disgusting. The seedy little arcade and the absolutely vile toilets need a complete overhaul. Then you have the ever present WHSmith of course. The Days Inn Hotel next door is okay though, I suppose..

Standard road chef WH Smith's expensive ciggarets £1 dearer than the shell garage , Costa significantly more expensive than Costa in town and "franchised" McDonald's so don't expect "have a seat and we will bring the food over" best exit experience from a major motorway service you will have exciting, risky and dangerous not for faint hearted driver t junction right to motorway left to sedgefield and spennymoor rush hour lots traffic bothways and quite times less but faster traffic if going north Washington services have slip road on and off motorway and going south aycliffe set back but slip road

This is the worst service station I've ever been too and I have visited some terrible ones but this stands out from the crowd. From the moment you step into this run down building, you already wished you didn't. The walls are mouldy and staff are so ignorant and rude. A member of staff working here today at Costa Coffee around 5pm barged straight past me and when I looked back she gave me a horrible look and when she returned to Costa, she was telling her colleagues about me and my friends and were repeatedly pointing and making sly remarks which was quite intimidating and so unprofessional. Walking round the whole station is awful in itself and the car park is so complicated to get around there is an accident waiting to happen there. The whole place needs to be bulldozed over and replaced with a lovely service station with pleasant staff. Will never return.

Terrible like a throwback to the worst service stations from the eighties - overpriced poor quality - this was at the one on the M6 toll

The whole place is a huge joke, from the moment you try to park your car. The layout of the car park is absolutely appalling - looks like it was made for the volume of traffic that would have been around in the 1950s or 60s. The main area of the building was not "too bad", but having to negotiate a twisting maze of narrow corridors to get to the toilets is a nightmare. Even the doorway to get to the narrow corridor is hardly wide enough for 2 people to pass - considering the door is the only route to all the toilets, so gets loads of people fighting to use it. Getting out of the car park was a bigger joke than getting in to it. The car park exits onto a busy main road. The exit is made worse due to merging traffic from the petrol forecourt on one side and a lorry park on the other. The whole site needs to be demolished and rebuilt.

This has to be one of the scruffiest motorway service areas I have ever had the misfortune to visit - and that says a lot! The toilets were dirty and the whole place could do with a make over. Access from the motorway is ok but the exit is a right turn on to a busy road and can be a nightmare. It's a pity, because this 'facility' must really damage the impression of County Durham given to motorway travellers.

An OK service area with most of the normal outlets. Overpriced for what you get but this one is a bit smaller which makes it a bit more pleasant to break your journey at.

Normally would recommend visiting Costa Coffee despite cost at services being significantly higher at motorway services staff very friendly but after regular visits last (9yrs) turned away this morning closed to bag food for 400 international visitors arriving this morning. There is a mcdonald, Starbucks and KFC also garage facilities only 10min away at thinford and I saved £4.75p just on coffees and porridge for 2 more than paid for the fuel so maybe if you looking for same service significantly cheaper give it ago

Costa drinks all good, every average cake priced at £2.85! you could make a whole cake for that. Eating areas could have been cleaner and toilets for all customers to use are in serious need of an upgrade. Broken tiles on the floor - harbouring who knows how many germs, old fittings which are not clean and I suspect will not clean. This is off our list of stopping places.

Demolishing the toilets and asking customers to use the bushes would improve the experience. The toilets stink of urine, there are bare lights and cables hanging from the ceiling, urine stains on the walls, plastic coating on the cubicles peeling away. I was ashamed to have to take my young daughter in there, she was upset by the experience, it would have been less distressing to have used the bushes in the car park.It's a crowded small building and you have to fight past piles of worthless tat blocking your way at the entrance if you want to get to the usual fast food or Costa coffee.

This is a busy services which is close to the motorway .unfortunately it is very scruffy the toilets are in desperate need of refurbishment and the car park could be kept cleaner. The exit to the main road needs a roundabout.It has improved on what it was before McDonald's which at least gives value for money.