Designed to resemble an air traffick control tower evoking the glamour of 1960s air travel, the restaurant shut in 1989 becasue of the cost of meeting health and safety legislation, however its pentagon-shaped lifts are still operational.

Sir Thomas Bennett wrote in his memoirs that his client, the Rank Organisation, “had two alternatives” when building Forton: “one, to build a trivial cup-of-tea and petrol-pump affair; the other, to erect so fine a service station that  people setting out on the road would make it a point of call.”