Mabardy’s Gulf Service

pricey but I understand why (on the Pike)
plenty of pumps
went inside and staff was good and it was clean

Natick Service Plaza’s in need of a refresh, and is smaller than the volume of traffic it has to support; it has fewer eating options and not enough parking or gas stall space compared to the more westerly plazas on the pike. It is the last stop on the string of rest areas going eastbound, so the basic advice here is keep going if you can, but remember it’s your last chance for the loo before hitting Boston traffic.
The gas outlet here is the newer pull-​in-​on-​one-​side style, angled so you’re supposed to all come in the same direction and leave the same direction. Which would be really very efficient if everybody just followed the program. With no signs explaining that, you do get the occasional yahoo trying to back in to a slot to get to their tank, or pulling out and pulling around the wrong way, which really doesn’t work at all when the angled pump stalls are pointing to get you out. I could write up the History of the World Explained by Bad Signage, and this would be but a footnote, but if you take the 20 – 60 seconds everybody wastes here because of the bad execution, and multiply it by the tens of thousands of people who go through here, you’re talking about thousands of hours of lost human productivity. Sobering thought, isn’t it? One thoughtfully-​designed sign probably costs, in aggregate, an entire single lifetime’s worth of waiting for somebody to pull