Lottas Grill

When the traffic disappeared, Lotta stayed, and her regulars stayed with her.

Until December 2020, around 14,000 cars a day rolled past Lottas Grill. Then, overnight, it was roughly 1,500. That's a drop of about 90 percent, and I remember thinking the story was over. I've eaten here since the grill opened in 2012, and the food has been well made every single time, but that doesn't help much if nobody drives past. Most roadside diners would have switched off the lights. Lotta didn't.

Dish of the day for 95 kronor and mash made from scratch, at a grill outside Vårgårda that people now take the old road to find.

The grill is still where it has always been, by the old road outside Vårgårda, but it now has shorter opening hours, 9 to 4. People who come here mostly do it on purpose. Many are regulars, others have heard about the place and choose the old route precisely for that reason. And new faces still turn up, people who happen to drive by and discover what they've been missing. Normally a roadside diner is the very definition of a place you stop at because it's in your way. Here it's the opposite.

Lotta makes the mash herself, from scratch, and that's not a given at a grill where the powder bag is usually the easy way out. Mash from scratch means potatoes that have to be peeled, boiled and pressed every day, and that kind of work shows on the plate but not on the price tag. The dish of the day costs 95 kronor, or 85 if you have lunch vouchers. Overall, prices are roughly 20 to 40 percent below what I usually pay at comparable places. I looked for the catch and found none.

Lotta herself accounts for a big part of the charm. She greets you with a warm smile, has plenty of charisma and a way of running her grill that is entirely her own. I'm hardly impartial after all these years, but that's exactly why I know it isn't down to luck. It's the combination of well-made food and a stubbornness of the likeable kind that has kept the place alive when almost everything was stacked against it.

Next time your travels take you past Vårgårda, turn off onto the old road. Arrive before 4, order the dish of the day and make sure the mash comes with it. If you drive by often, the lunch vouchers are an obvious investment; ten kronor saved per lunch adds up in the end.