A cup of gas station coffee that’s worth traveling for

In the early days of the motor car, if you wanted to cross the high-altitude Upper Engadin in Switzerland, your vehicle had to be pulled by horses. Because up to 1925, the townsfolk of St. Moritz had a ban on driving. When it was lifted, Shell opened a petrol station. It also funded the paving of the straight road between this and a sister Shell stop at Samedan. The head of the company, Henri Deterding lived at Suvretta, just outside St. Moritz, and staged speed trials along this three-to-four-kilometer stretch.

There is still a Shell petrol station on the St. Moritz site. It functioned for years before slipping into disrepair. Then, in 2023, a British car enthusiast called Richard Gauntlett, whose father had once owned Aston Martin, fell in love with it and set about restoring it as the Meyers Manx Café. Today, it serves gas along with coffee and cakes to the motorists who tour the mountains. But it’s also become something of a destination – despite its tiny size, celebs like Lord Norman Foster and designer Marc Newson have hosted book signings here.

And the name? Gauntlett is part of the team reviving Meyers Manx, the US firm that made the famous fiberglass dune buggy as seen in the original Thomas Crown Affair. So, if you want a place that’s cool both in the Californian and Alpine sense, you know where to come.