Charlton Service Plaza

Ugh. The Mass Pike is bad — getting off the Mass Pike at the Charlton Plaza to try to navigate through throngs of people, to eat shitty food, use dirty bathrooms, only to delay your trip further and hit more traffic while merging back on to the pike, now that’s awful.
Sometimes it’s unavoidable, or you may need to be reminded every few years, but I can promise you are NOT saving time by staying on the pike to use the service plaza. Try to plan ahead and pee or get food before or after your Mass Pike travels.
This place is always a mad-​house, the bathrooms (while they are large) are always icky, the food choices are gross, and gas is SO expensive. Avoid if at all possible!
I made the mistake of getting off to pee, and spent the rest of my trip wishing I had waited to stop after getting off the Pike.

Always packed. Good food choices and they have a farmers market on the weekends :) bathrooms are usually pretty clean

Mcdonalds, PaPa Ginos, D’Angelos, Fresh City. A smallish travel plaza but clean and functional

These stars are based solely off the bathroom visits. Take a word from a seasoned road warrior. If you find yourself having to go to the bathroom, don’t try and convince yourself that you can just wait to the next rest stop. These rest areas on the MassPike are quite a distance apart and «holding it» can be disastrous. I also should not that my only experience in the bathrooms at this rest stop are with the urinals and sinks, so this review probably isn’t worth reading. I always walk all the way to the back of the restroom. Over there are urinals that most people don’t find. They usually get side tracked going down the first row of them. If you like your privacy, don’t be fooled by following the crowd. The hand dryers are a bit weak… I think it’s time to upgrade. That all.

Clean and they get you your food fast and get you back out on the road. What more can you ask for from a rest stop

This is my least favorite plaza on the Pike, not for the facilities themselves (they’re fine) but for the congestion. This is one of the busiest plazas, because it gets a lot of the traffic from people coming from I-​495 and I-​290 going to I-​84. It also has a farm stand in the summer, making navigation a bit more challenging. Gas here will typically be a few cents a gallon higher than the plazas to the west (e.g., Ludlow). Since it’s a busy plaza, hopefully the rest rooms will be well maintained. As far as dining choices, they’re predictable: McDonalds, Fresh City, D’Angelo’s and Papa Gino’s pizza.

When we are on the Mass Pike and are in need of stopping at a rest stop, the Charlton Service Plaza is the rest stop that we prefer. The rest stop itself is always well maintained and the bathrooms are always clean. The other great thing about this particular rest stop is the fact that they have a ton of great food, and the convenience store is always well stocked as well.
The only downside to this rest stop is that since it is one of the better service plazas on the Pike, it tends to always be packed. Even though that is the case, the employees here do a great job of getting people in and out.

Cash only at 2 of the food vendors; milkshake machine broken at McDonalds, directed to McCafe which does not actually serve milkshakes… a lot of wasted time.

This is a good case in point about reviewing relative to a category, rather than an absolute standard. I would not be caught dead in any of the franchises represented here, which normally rate two stars from me on the rare occasions I bother to review (I confess I have to use them sometimes, don’t we all) but when you’re traveling the Pike, you’re stuck with what’s available at the service areas. (At least it’s not the bad old days of HoJos and nothing but.)
I travel the Pike a lot, and this is the best service plaza going eastbound. (The best going westbound is Ludlow). As of August 2013, there’s a Fresh City (which unfortunately closes early in the evening, around 8) for pseudo-​healthful options, a D’Angelos with decent pizza and OK subs, a Mickey D’s FWIW, a McCafé for moderately express service on the coffee, and and Aunt Annie’s for those that inexplicably get a jones for a Pretzel while tooling down the highway. The bathrooms are mediocre here but they’re at least large and the seating areas for the restaurants are also quite spacious (probably due to the proximity to I-​84 joining).
The only real issue is there’s a strange traffic elbow in the pike just past this service plaza area, and we’ve found otherwise inexplicable traffic delays seem to start there. So if the traffic is fine while you dine, you may get out to find out it’s slowed. Just a word to the wise.
This is also the last eastbound plaza before I495 — there’s a plaza at Westboro just after the junction there westbound but no corresponding one on the south side — so it’s effectively the last chance to stop before Metro Boston if you’re headed all the way in.

It’s a service plaza. Mc Donald’s, Mc Café, Fresh City (also owned by Mc Donald’s), & Pizza Hut. Something like a «fresh wraps» or whatever they’re called would be nice, or a salad bar. Something that’s not Mc Donald’s, Mc Donald’s owned, or pizza. There’s a convenience store which I didn’t go in so I can’t elaborate.
The bathrooms… well, they would be clean except there is only 1 cleaning woman in the place for a good 50 stalls, at least. WOMEN. It is NOT acceptable to pee all of the seat and LEAVE it for the cleaning woman to clean up. Seriously. 4 of the stalls I checked had pee in the toilets & weren’t flushed & one had it all over the seat & floor. It was appalling. You wouldn’t go to a friend’s house & pee all over their toilet seat & leave it, would you? And if the toilet doesn’t flush automatically there’s a button on the wall you can hit with your foot. It’s not rocket science. The cleaning woman is there to mop up the occasional mess, replace toilet paper rolls, keep the soap dispensers filled, occasionally unclog a toilet. She is not there to flush the toilet for you or clean up your enormous pee mess cause you can’t make it in the toilet & are too lazy & rude & spoiled to wipe up your own disgusting mess yourself. She deserves a raise!
Anyway, if there were better food selection I’d happily give this place 5 stars.

It was 3am, The megabus driver told us we had 20 minutes. Normally I don’t want to get up and leave my seat, but the idea of a proper toilet was well FANTASTIC.
It was 3am, kinda dark, but I could tell this was not the Chesapeake House. It was new and shiny. Even modern. Kinda like Mr. Spacely’s place in the woods. You know lots of glass, but still some stones and bricks.
The bathroom was massive. Probably 40 – 50, maybe more. I was bleary eyed. They were clean. Cleaner then Le Meridien.
At 3am Mc Donalds and the convenience store were still open. I think they have a d’angelo’s sub shop in there as well.
Oh and the biggest perk… Bank of America ATM!
So, if you find yourself on the mass turnpike, take it from the princess, it’s clean and safe!