Little Chef's special gives hopeless romantics a taste of true love

You know the feeling: butterflies in your stomach, an overwhelming desire to whistle like Roger Whittaker and sing like Barry White. Yes, you're in love. What you do next could be crucial. So if you're a red-blooded British male, there's only one thing for it – get her down to the Little Chef.

As implausible as it might sound, that's exactly what Britain's romantics are doing to their astonished dates.

Little Chef, owned by the Compass Group, is rebranding itself, taking a step upmarket and wooing discerning gastronomes and would-be Lotharios. The company has just completed an experiment so successful that it will change the face of the roadside café for ever.

Given the name Little Chef New Choices, six restaurants have been redecorated with soft furnishings and Venetian blinds. New chairs that are not actually bolted to the floor have been introduced while tasteful china pots have replaced the dangerous stainless steel teapots of which the British are so fond.

While retaining favourites such as the thrombosis-inducing Olympic breakfast and the beloved gammon steak with pineapple rings, the Chef's chefs have also brought in fish and chips from Harry Ramsden's and baguettes from Upper Crust. Finally, as a coup de grâce, new licences have been acquired that will let customers simply sit and have a drink while – at 4pm – lights are dimmed, wine glasses introduced and disposable table cloths laid. Voilà! Sales have risen by more than 30 per cent, figures that have delighted the board of directors so much that they are planning to upgrade about 150 of the group's 400 restaurants.

Jill Brown, the company's marketing director, said yesterday: "It's been remarkably successful. As well as the passing traffic we have always had, we are now getting people actually making a journey to the restaurants for a meal. Men are bringing women on dates because the low-lighting and ambience are so pleasant. They have a bottle of wine and a meal at very reasonable prices."

At the New Choices on the A34 near Kidlington, Oxfordshire, yesterday, female diners doubted a meal there would kindle the flames of desire. "God, he'd have to be very sad to bring you here," said Kate Matthews, 32, from Shoreham, West Sussex. "I think the pictures in the menu might put me off." Her friend, Lucy Hickox, 23, agreed. "If a man brought me here, that would be it; finito!"

Not everyone felt that way. Simon Greensted, 48, emigrated to America 12 years ago and had just arrived back in Britain for Christmas. "I quite like it," he said, tucking into his favourite dish, pancakes with syrup. "It's definitely an improvement, particularly adding the Harry Ramsden's menu." But he added: "I think you'd have to be crazy to bring a girl here on a date. Unless, of course, you were a hopeless cheapskate."