Thailand's Petrol Station Café: Shell delicafé Rayong Review

There's a proper café inside a Shell petrol station in Rayong, Thailand

My wife is Thai, so back in 2022 we lived together in Rayong — a coastal city about two to three hours' drive from Bangkok. You genuinely can't get by without a car there. Supermarket, market, anywhere at all: you're driving. Which means you end up at Shell petrol stations rather a lot. Fill up, nip to the loo, grab a bottle of water from the shop. Except one day I noticed there was a café tucked into one corner of the forecourt. A place called delicafé — or Delicafe.

Back home, you wouldn't exactly expect a café attached to a filling station. I'll be honest, I found it a bit odd at first. But in Thailand, it's completely normal. PTT stations have Café Amazon (Cafe Amazon), Bangchak has its own in-house brand called Inthanin — virtually every major petrol chain has a café built in. Thailand's road network is far more developed at the national road level than the motorway level, so the local petrol station serves the same purpose as a motorway services here in the UK. Fill up, grab a coffee, crack on.

Your typical Shell station along a Thai road. Spot the yellow shell logo and there's a decent chance a café is waiting inside.

The exterior: far too nice for a petrol station café

If you're picturing a dingy little kiosk, you're in for a surprise. There's a small ornamental pond out front with well-kept greenery — it looks more like a neighbourhood café than a forecourt pit stop. Thailand has a genuinely strong café culture. The scale isn't quite the same as the enormous standalone chains you see in the UK, but Thais have a real knack for making compact spaces feel considered and atmospheric. You'll walk past what looks like a tired roadside building and find a completely different world inside. delicafé is a decent example of that — working with the constraints of a petrol station and making something that actually feels worth sitting in.

There was even a little fountain in the pond out front — not bad going for a petrol station. Worth noting, though: this branch looked particularly well put-together. delicafé varies a lot from site to site. Some are spacious standalone buildings; others are little more than a counter squeezed beside the convenience shop. Don't expect every branch to look like this one.

The entrance sets the tone immediately

The front door is a proper wooden affair with a round porthole window — it reminded me more of a local brunch spot than anything you'd find on a forecourt. There's a WELCOME mat on the floor and a big glass panel beside the door so you can see straight in. There were a few outdoor tables, though in the midday heat of Rayong, sitting outside wasn't remotely tempting.

The counter, menu, and one thing that'll surprise you about Thai café portions

Behind the counter there's a menu board on the wall and a display case with pastries and snacks. White tiled walls, black menu signage — clean and unfussy. I noticed a tip box sitting on the counter too. Drinks are generally cheaper than you'd pay in the UK, and the portions are genuinely generous. Order an iced drink and you get a large cup packed with ice — it felt like getting two drinks for the price of one. My wife and I ordered separately without the slightest concern about the bill.

Next to the counter there were individually wrapped snacks — the sort of thing you'd grab to eat in the car.

There was also a notice about discounts and loyalty points. The regulars clearly kept a close eye on those.

The signage says delicafé — but it's becoming Shell Café

That's the delicafé sign as it was in 2022. These days, the brand is in the process of being rebranded as Shell Café. The first Shell Café opened in Bangkok in 2022 and the rollout has been gradual ever since — if you visit now, the sign may well be different. That said, plenty of branches still carry the old delicafé branding. It's largely cosmetic: the menu and the way things are run remain much the same either way.

The seating and atmosphere inside

The large windows let in plenty of light and the view outside. Seating is split between round tables and window-side bar stools — from the bar seats you look out over the forecourt. There weren't masses of seats, but we visited around lunchtime on a quiet day, so it was peaceful and we could spread out comfortably.

Traditional Thai snacks make an appearance too

On the window table there were some traditional Thai snacks laid out: kluai muan (Kluai Muan, กล้วยม้วน, a rolled banana sweet) and kanom pia (Kanom Pia, ขนมเปี๊ยะ, a mung bean pastry). These looked like they'd been brought in by the branch independently rather than supplied centrally by the franchise. It's something you see fairly often in Thai cafés — local snacks slipped in alongside the standard menu, which I rather liked.

The view from the window: easy to forget you're at a petrol station

Looking out from inside, you see the pond in the foreground and the petrol station beyond it. Thailand is hot all year round — stand outside for five minutes and you're sweating through your shirt. Funnily enough, I sometimes thought British summers could feel more brutally oppressive at their peak; Thailand is relentlessly warm but rarely delivers that sudden, suffocating wall of heat you get during a UK heatwave. Either way, stepping into air conditioning feels like an absolute lifesaver. Sat inside with a cold drink, watching the trees and the little fountain, you genuinely forget you're at a filling station. My wife didn't want to leave — she ordered another coffee just to stay a bit longer.

Glass up to the ceiling: cosy even in the middle of the afternoon

Along the window shelf, jars and bottles of snacks are arranged on a wooden ledge. Look up and you can see tree branches through the glass ceiling panels, with small lights strung between them. Even in the middle of the day, the place had a strangely cosy quality to it. I also remember a faint smell of roasting coffee hanging in the air. Not bad at all, for a petrol station.

The bakery selection: straightforward, but perfectly suited to a road stop

The display case holds croissants, doughnuts, egg tarts, sandwiches, along with bottles of water and soft drinks. It's not an extensive range — roughly what you'd expect from a budget café chain. There's nothing fancy about it, but for a quick bite while travelling Thailand's national roads, it's exactly what you need.

The menu has English throughout — no Thai required to order

The menu board on the wall behind the counter is divided into clear categories: Coffee, Signature Coffee, Bubble Milk Tea, Tea, Milk/Chocolate, and Smoothie/Soda. Every item has English written beneath the Thai, so ordering is straightforward even if you don't read a word of Thai. Given how many international visitors come through Thailand, I never once came across a franchise café menu that didn't include English — and delicafé is no exception.

Ordering coffee in Thailand: the one thing you really need to know

I didn't get a photo of the drinks — we polished them off too quickly. I had an Americano; my wife had a latte. Here's the thing: in Thai cafés, an Americano often comes with syrup added as standard. I can't stand sweet coffee, so I made sure to ask for none. Without specifying, you'll end up with a noticeably sweet cup.

Same goes for a latte. It's not necessarily the espresso-and-steamed-milk version you'd get at home. Thai lattes frequently contain condensed milk or have sugar added by default. Thai coffee culture leans towards sweet and strong, so the recipes can differ quite a bit from what you're used to.

A couple of honest gripes

Thai indoor spaces tend to run their air conditioning significantly harder than we do in the UK. Walking in from the heat feels like paradise, but after sitting for a while you start to feel the chill. delicafé was no different. Bring a light layer — it's genuinely useful advice. There's also no toilet inside the café itself; you have to use the shared facilities on the forecourt. Not far, but not directly accessible from inside the café either.

Not every Shell station has a delicafé — the wider picture

It's worth knowing that some Shell stations in Thailand host entirely different coffee brands. Up in Chiang Mai, there's at least one station where an independent café called Forty-Nine Coffee House has set up shop, and apparently some branches feature northern Thai roasters like Doi Chaang (ดอยช้าง). It varies by location. Across Thailand as a whole, PTT's Café Amazon dominates with over 5,000 outlets. PunThai Coffee (พันธุ์ไทย) and Inthanin each run over 1,000 branches. Shell Café is still at around 100 locations — much smaller in scale — but I came away with the impression that they take their beans more seriously than the sheer numbers might suggest.

Not a destination in itself — but well worth a stop if you're passing

Is delicafé worth making a special trip for? Honestly, no. It's not that kind of place. But if you're living in Rayong or driving anywhere in Thailand and you're stopping at a Shell station anyway, don't just fill up and leave. Sit down, have an inexpensive coffee in the air conditioning, and take a proper break.

It's a genuinely interesting window into a café culture that simply doesn't exist in the same way back home — petrol stations that smell of roasted coffee rather than petrol. I miss the ordinariness of those Rayong days more than I expected.

This article is based on a visit in 2022. Menu options and prices may have changed — worth checking before you go.