ONroute

Original highway rest areas (1960s–2007)

Construction of Ontario Highways 400 and 401 began in the early 1950s, with the last section of 401 completed in 1968. Both roads were intended as bypasses, going around populated areas instead of through them (the highways 11/27 and 2 which they replaced were Main Street in nearly every served community) and therefore initially had few services. A series of rest stops was constructed as part of the highway in the 1960s in rural areas to provide a full-service restaurant (later replaced with franchised fast food) and a service station (eventually curtailed to fuel only, no repair services). All but a few of these dated from the same era with strong similarity in design.

In line with the 400-series highways being fully controlled-access, all of these service centres allow general access by freeway entry/exit only and do not connect to adjacent roads, even those located in cities. Some of these urban service centres may have restricted access to surface streets, during construction, and on an ongoing basis for staff, suppliers deliveries, and waste disposal. The only exception was the Cookstown service centre, which was directly connected to Highway 89 (a surface street) as well as the Highway 400 freeway since the centre was located at their interchange.

Under the original arrangements, each rest stop on the two highways was leased by the provincial government to a major oil company; in 2007 the lessees consisted of Imperial Oil, Petro-Canada, and Shell Canada. From the late 1980s onwards, food and retail operations of most of these rest areas were contracted to Scott's Hospitality, a major publicly traded Canadian restaurant operator, offering food from brands including Wendy's, Tim Hortons, KFC, and Mr. Sub. Some centres used other providers, including two Petro-Canada service centres with McDonald's restaurants near Cambridge. In 1999 Scott's was acquired by John Bitove's Obelysk Inc., and the highway centre operations were sold to HMSHost in 2005.

Reconstruction (2007–2013)

In 2007, with most of the original contracts nearing expiry, the government of Ontario tendered the full system of highway centres to be operated on a new long term contract. Brookfield, Morguard, and European operator Areas were among the groups that submitted bids. However, Host Kilmer Service Centres, a joint venture of HMSHost and Larry Tanenbaum's family office Kilmer Van Nostrand, was provisionally selected as the new operator in 2009, with a full agreement being signed in April 2010. HKSC's agreement also gives it "first right of opportunity" to develop similar service centres on other non-tolled 400-series highways in Ontario.

The 1960s-era rest stops began to close in 2008 for demolition and remediation as the previous contracts expired, leaving many sites out of operation, or with limited service, for a year or more. HKSC began to construct its new service stations in late 2009, with the renovated centres beginning to open in summer 2010. Most of the remaining redevelopment projects were completed in 2013. Partners in the redevelopment projects included EllisDon Construction, Quadrangle, and Bruce Mau Design. All of the redeveloped locations were designed to meet the LEED certification standards of the Canadian Green Building Council, as well as current standards of accessibility for travellers with disabilities.

The Cookstown service centre closed on February 1, 2013 in order to accommodate reconfiguration of the interchange ramps between Highways 400 and 89, being replaced by a new service centre (Innisfil ONRoute) on Highway 400 north of Fourth Line which opened in June 2015.

The rest areas on Highway 401 at Ingersoll and Newcastle (both serving only the westbound carriageway) and the Highway 400 rest area in Maple (Vaughan) (serving southbound traffic only) were rebuilt in the late 1990s, ahead of the other remaining rest areas being tendered to HKSC for redevelopment, and as their design was sufficiently modern they remained in operation. The Maple service centre eventually closed on April 21, 2025 for reconstruction.

Subsequent developments

On June 13, 2019, HMS Host announced the sale of all 23 ONroute centres to Arjun Infrastructure and Fengate Asset Management. Arjun is a British company which is the minority shareholder in the similar Welcome Break chain of motorway service areas in the United Kingdom, while Fengate is a Canadian asset management firm.

In December 2021, Caroline Mulroney and Todd Smith announced that 17 of the 23 stations would have charging stations for electric vehicles installed by mid 2022, and three more by the end of 2022. They will be installed by Ivy, a joint venture between Hydro One and Ontario Power Generation, at a cost of $11.5 million.