Simon Turl, the chief executive of RoadChef, will be spending most of today at the company’s Watford Gap Services on the M1 for the celebrations marking the 50th anniversary of Britain’s first motorway service station.

The opening in 1959 was a damp squib. Although the M1 itself was ready for the first motorway users, work on the Blue Boar services at Watford Gap was not yet finished, so the first customers were served in temporary sheds.

But the fame of “the gateway to the North” would grow quickly. Among those who have stopped there are the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, leaving their autographs as they passed through in the Sixties.

RoadChef acquired the Blue Boar chain in 1999 and, despite lingering perceptions over the quality of the food served in service stations, the facilities on offer are light years from the station’s early days. In addition to a petrol station it has a hotel, a coffee bar and a newsagents, as well as free wi-fi.

Watford Gap Services welcomes about 12,000 visitors a day through the front door, only 60 per cent of whom actually spend any money. Turnover this year will be about £10 million, although that excludes £30 million of petrol and forecourt shop sales for BP.

For Mr Turl, 48, who started as a petrol forecourt attendant at Granada Motorway Services in 1978, one of the biggest changes in recent years has been the introduction of coffee shops on the motorways. RoadChef’s Costa shops account for 50 per cent of catering sales at its 19 service stations. Yet an even more dramatic change is about to happen: in January, Watford Gap will lose one of its most enduring features.

“We’re going to kill off the old free-flow servery, where you take a tray and queue up at various points along the way,” Mr Turl said. “By the time you get to the till, your hot food is, at best, tepid. We’re working on a counter system that will ensure you can enjoy your food hot.”

Despite today’s festivities, Mr Turl will not be toasting the occasion with champagne, as alcohol is banned from motorways. “It’s a teetotal celebration,” he said.