A chain of baked potato restaurants very prolific in the early nineties, but now, curiously, getting harder and harder to find.

spudulike - or SpudULike (I'm never really sure) - seemed to try very hard to amalgamate fast food with health food, in a sort of rebellious stance against McDonalds and Burger King, and kind of succeeded too, for a little while. Along with your potato, baked in an oven and not in a microwave (you know, like potatoes used to be - reminiscent of bonfire night), and served in a polystyrene box would come a little plastic knife and fork, a serviette, salt and pepper in paper sachets, and the filling of your choice. These ranged from cold fillings - tuna and mayonnaise, sweetcorn and cottage cheese, and so on to hot fillings - chilli beef, bacon and cheese and what have you. And they were very nice too.

There are probably a few still kicking about - there's one by Piccadilly Station in Manchester for a start, in case you feel the urge, but they're not the institutions they once were. There are several reasons for this, the main one being McDonalds, of course. Trying to cut through potato skin with a plastic knife against polystyrene was also a huge factor - everyone who has ever eaten there knows what polystyrene tastes like. And it wasn't very fast, either, as fast food goes... you had to sit down and chomp for a considerable while. Aside from that, there's something rather satisfying about eating fried, greasy, and unhealthy food that you know you shouldn't be eating - SpudULike never really got there.

Victoria Wood immortalised the place when she mentioned it in a sketch and pronounced herself unsure of its pronunciation 'Spud - oo - lick - eh'?

Good food - polystyrene not withstanding - but not worth the time it took to eat.