Beaconsfield - Ryan Review

Opening day! This Nando's had only been open for a few hours, so I was very happy to be getting Nando's at seemingly one of my regular pit-stops on the way back to Brum!

Gone are the days of only being able to go to a WH Smith and a Little Chef for Motorway Services and now at Beaconsfield there's a Wetherspoons and a whole range of other eateries and the bigger services are more like food courts within shopping centres these days... and, for a food court Nando's, there's been a pretty good job of trying to keep the Nando's feel here with some interesting bits of decor. Hundreds of free parking spaces at this services too.

Down the middle of the restaurant are two rows of booths - one row being two-seater booths and the other being 4/6-seater. On top of all of these booths are colourful pegs (which I'm sure some kid will poke their eye out on before long). There's bench seating along the left hand-side with a large round table at the back-left with a big wicker multi-coloured lamps shade above it. Then round to the right at the back is a section with plenty more booths and a brightly coloured red and yellow rope/wicker for the ceiling and plenty of paintings on the walls here - along with a couple of large canvasses on the wall to the right as you enter. There's also some outside seating through the doors at the back to a shared outside seating area. The main ceiling is all wooden clad with a big wooden pattern on it too. See if you can sit as far into the restaurant as possible, otherwise you don't get any of the Nando's music and you are in effect, just then sat outside and can hear everybody queue-ing at McDonald's next door.

There are also some interesting green orbs for the main lighting and a nice illuminated "the story of Barci" above the till area.

Toilets are the main shared ones for the Services - a pretty good effort for a food court Nando's.

It was pretty quiet when I arrived and being the first day there was an abundance of staff all getting to grips with the till etc - all pleasant though - and am pleased to say the food came in only four minutes.

A late-lunchtime stop meant it was another chicken fillet burger and chips and this was very much like the Bromley offering in that it was a standard sized fillet breast which didn't quite fill the ciabatta and an average size portion of crispy chips.