The UK's first drive-thru Pret made me pine for smart waiters and proper cups

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.

In the early 2000s, it even felt vaguely futuristic – to me, anyway. I’d spent the previous decade in Buenos Aires, where quite astringent coffee was dispensed in beautiful cafes with waiters, lots of tables and windows, and where there were newspapers, people canoodling and chatting. Pret, by comparison, was slick and efficient, serving decent shots of the dark stuff to atomised urbanites and hurried workers.

At Oakwood Gate, I decide to holler my order from the car. I’ve had perhaps three drive-thru meals in my life, in three different countries, so this feels like a novelty. I go for a flat white and almond croissant. Underwhelming, perhaps, but Pret is not cheap (£7 for my modest combo, double that if I were to add a juice and breakfast pot or roll), it’s early, and I don’t feel like spilling porridge all over me. Also, “super plates” of chipotle chicken or tofu salad don’t feel right in this fast-food setting.

The Pret-a-Manger concept was launched in Hampstead in 1984. It initially bombed but the business, with new owners and slick branding, relaunched two years later in Victoria Street, Westminster. The rest is pastry. There are currently around 500 UK branches – including 220 in airports, train stations and motorway service areas – and there are plans to double the overall number to 1,000.

Research by World Coffee Portal shows that the UK drive-thru coffee shop segment grew 6.7 per cent last year, totalling 912 stores. Costa and Starbucks entered the drive-thru market in the UK over a decade ago, while Caffè Nero opened its first 24-hour drive-thru store at London Stansted Airport in 2024. And it’s not just coffee chains that are venturing into the world of drive-thru; in recent years, both Greggs and Leon have done so.

If the Birchwood branch is successful, it will likely spur on Pret to roll out lots more of these outlets. But not all sites succeed; this very location was previously a Starbucks.

The appeal of drive-thru is obvious. It’s low effort. You can keep listening to your own choice of music or radio station. You can stay warm and comfortable. The ordering is a cinch. There’s a big display of options with pictures to help you choose. But the process hardly lends itself to contemplating what you want to eat. When queues form, as is the case at every McDonalds drive-thru on bank holidays and other peak times, hungry passengers in the cars behind might begin to bristle.

Having placed and collected my order, I park up and dine in the car – the coffee is better than I remembered, the croissant not so crumbly that the car requires a full valeting – before popping inside the 48-seat store to take a look. It’s smart and airy, and quite inviting on a drizzly morning. There are even customer toilets – a big draw in largely loo-less provincial England.

Ceri, a local woman, says she comes here most days for a coffee and to catch up with work. But she doesn’t do drive-thru. “It’s a bit American isn’t it, like drive-in movies,” she says. Matty, a mechanic, says he often grabs a drive-thru meal between jobs.

Online, the opening has, inevitably, prompted plenty of reaction. “Welcome to 2009!” ironises one commentator. “Support local cafes around our beautiful town before corporations,” says another. One happy parent, however, declares the new Pret a “game changer”, and an Instagram post about the opening has more than 2,000 likes.

I probably won’t be going again, unless I need fuel and happen to be passing. After three decades back in the UK, I miss proper cafes with waiters and menus and proper cups instead of disposable ones, and glasses of fizzy water – and no strip-lit fridges to chill the atmosphere as well as the food. When sipping coffee, I’d like to watch cars going past the window; not sit in one. I want to slow down, not speed eat.

Junction 21 on the M6 sits above the Mersey and the Manchester Ship Canal. Now, if there was a sit-down Pret with views of those, I might be tempted.