Extra Mile Books

Home
United Kingdom
Bristol
Extra Mile Books

Extra Mile Books is a Bristol-based independent publisher. Need a gift for a foodie? Shop books now. Out now!

Home of #1 best-selling guides to British farm shops, independent cafés, coastal cafés, and memorable spots to eat near motorway and main-road junctions. http://www.centralbooks.com/extra-mile-the.html

-------

The journey is part of the adventure. Unless of course that journey involves soulless, expensive motorway service stations, bland food, restless children and a six-mile tailback. Motorway

services are boring – motorways are boring – but they’re a necessary and convenient evil when you need to break the journey, especially when travelling with kids and pets. The Extra Mile is an easy-to-navigate guide highlighting the best places to pause - within easy reach of arterial routes - for a more enjoyable and rewarding break. For us, that means good-quality local food from makers and growers, space for children and pets to let off steam, and attractive surroundings no more than 15 minutes’ drive from a junction. Eating and resting better and supporting local businesses without adding much to overall journey time.

02/08/2025

This solar-powered takeaway and bike hub is on the shingle next to Sustrans’ National Cycle Route 1. Former journalist Kate is its driving (or pedalling) force, her quaint fisherman’s hut now a showcase for all that is good about the Great British seaside. They do memorable ‘Hot Dogolates’ (the beach welcomes dogs). Join a beach yoga class or hire a bike and stuff its panniers with savouries.

Stripy deckchairs and classic picnic foods abound: think massive sausage rolls, offensively large scotch eggs, homebaking by the bucketload, and doorstop entish
Huffkin baps. The strawberries with clotted cream are a summer highlight. Take in
Tudor castle, the White Cliffs of Dover, Deal’s Brutalist pier or historic Ramsgate.

With the closest point to France just round the corner: c’est parfait.

Hut55 is one of the fab independent places to eat in The Coastal Café Guide. Buy your copy there or, if they’re out of stock, visit https://theextramile.guide/shop/ today. (It’s also available via the usual suspects online.)

31/07/2025

Oh my those sausage rolls! Got to admit it was that photo that caught our eye enough to give today's spotlight to.... The Plough at Lupton, just off the M6. It's a modern incarnation of a classic coaching inn, is a popular dining and overnighting stop on journeys to or from Scotland. Paul and Laura draw travellers in with their welcoming log fires, sumptuous rooms and seasonal menus, with food served all day every day. Lupton itself is a picturesque hamlet (worthy of a leg-stretch stroll) between the Yorkshire Dales and the Lake District. What wonderful neighbours!

In the stylish restaurant, dine on dishes like chargrilled octopus with padron peppers and chorizo; roasted squash flatbread; or beef, onion and stout pie with meat from the Cartmel Valley butchery. The dog-friendly bar has the same menu. Afterwards, melt into a hearth-side leather sofa with your coffee, or take a Handsome Brewery pint out to the garden for long fell views.

The Plough has a handful of five-star rooms (some family and dog-friendly) and plenty of local diversions: Hutton Roofs Crags has an almost lunar landscape and limestone pavement to delight geologists and children alike.

The Plough is one of the fab, independent places to eat in The Extra Mile: Delicious Alternatives to Motorway Services. Buy your copy there or, if they’re out of stock, visit https://theextramile.guide/shop/ today. (It’s also available via the usual suspects online.)

29/07/2025

Summer giveaway time! How would you and a friend like to win one of these fabulous books each?

- THE EXTRA MILE GUIDE: delicious alternatives to motorway services
- THE COASTAL CAFE GUIDE
- THE FARMSHOP GUIDE

Each one is bursting with brilliant little places that will tickle your tastebuds and leave you driving away with smug satisfaction that you've found somewhere marvellous to stop, that isn't a chain that's as flavourless as its faceless.

To be in with a chance of winning, just:
- follow
- tag the friend you'd like to go with
- make sure they also follow @extramilebooks

We'll do the draw, randomly of course, after 6pm on Sunday 3rd August.

And if you're not lucky enough to win, you can always get your hands on the copies you want from https://theextramile.guide/shop/ (or the usual online suspects).

27/07/2025

You can thank the furrows and polytunnels behind the Bee Garden – as well as a wide network of local growers – for the produce beneath the awning of this pretty-as-a-picture farm shop. The plump tomatoes of every shade that grace the shelves in warmer months (perennial crowd-pleasers from nearby Nutbourne nursery) are succeeded by an array of crisp, juicy apples as autumn starts to bite.

Elsewhere, artisan products abound, many of which come from within 20 miles of the shop. Expect handmade dips, ewes’ milk cheese, ice cream, free-range chicken,
Grass Snake gin, and seasonal plants. This is the sister shop to Village Greens at the Denbies Wine Estate nearby, so if you’re in the market for a local wine pairing (or indeed a local cheese-tasting experience), you’re in luck.

🍷

Village Greens is one of the fab independent places to eat in The Farm Shop Guide. Buy your copy there or, if they’re out of stock, visit https://theextramile.guide/shop/ today. (It’s also available via the usual suspects online.)

Photo: © Andrew Shaylor

25/07/2025

photo (c) Hive Beach CafeJust look at that water... Dorset’s rightly famed Jurassic Coast attracts fossickers aplenty and Hive Beach Café attracts their foodie equivalent: visitors keen to unearth some fresh seafood action (while dolphin spotting over dinner). This sand-side café is run by the Attrill family, who support their community by using excellent local suppliers and fundraising for local events and charities.

Hive Beach itself is part of Chesil Beach, the world’s largest shingle ridge. Step onto Hive Beach’s patio for a lobster treat or some classy fish and chips, or curb sugar cravings with a slab of yummy homemade cake. The sun-shading marquee returns each summer; the Ice Cream Parlour offers free sea views with each scoop. Buy The Hive’s cookbook to replicate their fishy feasts at home.

Hive Beach Cafe is one of the fab independent places to eat in The Coastal Café Guide. Buy your copy there or, if they’re out of stock, visit https://theextramile.guide/shop/ today. (It’s also available via the usual suspects online.)

photo (c) Hive Beach Cafe

23/07/2025

Today, allow us to shine a light on Providero, which began life in an achingly cool Citroën van: living the free-wheeling dream. Today, its (more mechanically reliable) bricks-and-mortar café sits on top of a hill just off the Expressway at Llandudno Junction. Blow the cobwebs away with a walk along the harbour bridge to the medieval Conwy castle before heading to Providero to reward yourself with some of Wales's best tea and coffee: Heartlands is hand-roasted in Llandudno.

The Citroën might be gone but the cool vibe remains. The building's exterior is smartly clad in greys and woods and inside are the exposed bricks and stripped wood floors of a hip coffee house. The flat whites are exceptional. The hot chocolate and jams are local and a selection of the delicious cakes are homemade: resist at your peril. People-watch from the breakfast bar with fresh flowers in pots or sink into an upstairs sofa. If you arrive late and miss the caffeine boat, their second café in downtown Llandudno opens until 5pm.

🏰

Providerois one of the fab, independent places to eat in The Extra Mile: Delicious Alternatives to Motorway Services. Buy your copy there or, if they’re out of stock, visit https://theextramile.guide/shop/ today. (It’s also available via the usual suspects online.)

21/07/2025

As the summer holiday getaway begins, here's one of many places just off Britain's motorways. Just off the M4 J15, in Wiltshire the family-run Three Trees Farm Shop & Café is part of a mixed farm housed on Chiseldon's former army camp.

Relax in the airy café to sip, sup and savour as sheep and cows chew the cud outside against the backdrop of Liddington Castle.

The coffee is strong and delicious when boosted with farm-fresh cream. The cheese scones have their own followers and the cakes are varied and home-baked. Tasty meals and snacks, such as Welsh rarebit, sandwiches, chilli con carne and jacket potatoes, are crafted from ingredients stocked in the farm shop. Much of the meat comes from the fields (the breakfast sausages are nigh-on unbeatable) with the rest coming from a community of local Wiltshire producers.

Pick up a sirloin for dinner at the onsite butchery, some Cotswold Lavender hand cream, a bag of fudge for the journey or even a cheeky tipple of Ramsbury vodka for later. You and your four-legged friends can eat on the patio if weather permits.

☀️

Three Trees is one of the fab, independent places to eat in The Extra Mile: Delicious Alternatives to Motorway Services. Buy your copy there or, if they’re out of stock, visit https://theextramile.guide/shop/ today. (It’s also available via the usual suspects online.)

19/07/2025

There is plenty to keep you occupied in the pretty harbour town of Peel, Isle of Man: take a mackerel fishing trip in the bay, swot up on history at the House of Manannan museum, or visit the magnificent Peel Castle on St Patrick’s Isle (once a Viking stronghold). When hunger calls, fill up on local food at the .

It does an excellent line in wood-fired pizzas loaded with local ingredients, and occasionally other fire-cooked goodies – buttery langoustines anyone? Enjoy the al fresco quayside vibes and regular live music events under the bright orange sail shade, or take your pizza shoreside to watch sunset over the distant Mountains of Mourne from Fenella Beach.

Fun fact: the pizzeria takes its name from the legendary black dog, Moddey Dhoo, rumoured to haunt the halls of the castle.

The Black Dog Oven is one of the fab independent places to eat in The Coastal Café Guide. Buy your copy there or, if they’re out of stock, visit https://theextramile.guide/shop/ today. (It’s also available via the usual suspects online.)

17/07/2025

Today's spotlight falls on Househill Cafe and Farm Shop. Steve and Bee set up this treasure of a café and mini shop on the side of a working beef farm in 2020 (“yes, mid-pandemic”, they say), with a firm focus on fresh, local, and seasonal produce.

Smiley staff ply tables with hearty plates from the farmhouse kitchen: think vegan breakfasts, steak salads, bibimbap, and homemade cakes. The place has a lovely feel and music lovers enjoy the playlists.

Ingredients that make up the meals are sold in the modest farm shop alongside,
so you can try to recreate those mouth-watering dishes at home. Surrounded by
the Highlands and with Scotland’s epic East Coast nearby, this is a great spot to
fuel up before an adventure. It is popular so book ahead (dogs are welcome indoors
in The Snug area only, so do mention any when booking).

Househill is one of the fab independent places to eat in The Farm Shop Guide. Buy your copy there or, if they’re out of stock, visit https://theextramile.guide/shop/ today. (It’s also available via the usual suspects online.)

15/07/2025

Let us introduce you to Carnaby's, just off the A1 near Chathill. If the word 'castle' had a collective noun, you'd use it to help describe Northumberland's coastal AONB. From Alnwick north via Bamburgh and Lindisfarne, this region is littered with iconic outlines and the A1 whisks you between them all. Break up the castle-spotting at Carnaby’s Café, a stylish stop-off right on the roadside for those in a rush.

White chairs tuck beneath wooden tables in the modern dining area, with long farmhouse benches to share if you're feeling social. Fresh and colourful dishes please the eye and the appetite, from hearty breakfasts and imaginative salads to homemade sausage rolls, fluffy frittatas and oven-warmed quiches.

In summer, large doors open into the enclosed, sun-warmed courtyard where drivers can relax as the kids' energies are absorbed by the play area and ride-on tractors. Neat stacks of logs feed the wood burner in winter. The shop sells lovely gifts, homewares and clothes and your four-legged friends are welcome outside.

Carnaby's is one of the fab, independent places to eat in The Extra Mile: Delicious Alternatives to Motorway Services. Buy your copy there or, if they’re out of stock, visit https://theextramile.guide/shop/ today. (It’s also available via the usual suspects online.)

10/07/2025

Tattoos of their brand name? Cripes, that's team dedication for you! It's not fully surprising though given their dedication to the farm-to-fork cause: their home-reared, rare-breed beef and lamb really are quite special. Just a nip off the M1 and M42, prepare to enjoy their Longhorn burgers, as well as pastries, coffees, and colourful salads.

Tori & Ben's Farm Shop is one of the fab, independent places to eat in The Extra Mile: Delicious Alternatives to Motorway Services (it's also in The Farm Shop Guide). Buy your copies on arrival or, if they’re out of stock, visit https://theextramile.guide/shop/ today.

(It’s also available from the usual suspects online.)

08/07/2025

We're expecting more good weather this week, and Scotland, of course, is no exception, even in the Scottish school holidays!

So we thought we'd shine a light on this gorgeous place - Drift at Canty Bay, North Berwick. Stunning, big, picture windows ensure uninterrupted views over the North Sea to Bass Rock beyond, with city street-food vibes coming out of their shipping container kitchen.

It's rightly popular, so booking is recommended.

Drift is one of the fab independent places to eat featured in both The Coastal Café Guide, and The Extra Mile. Buy your copies in-house at Drift or, if they’re out of stock, visit https://theextramile.guide/shop/ today. (It’s also available from the usual suspects online.)

Address

Bristol

Website

http://www.theextramile.guide/

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Extra Mile Books posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to Extra Mile Books: