The Pantry (By Marble) Rosebank ,South Africa

It did not look like a petrol station.

For those that don't know I am a big foodie mainly I think to my dad being a chef having worked in some of the top kitchens around the world. I am always up for travelling to find something new and I am normally quite harsh with my criticism as the expectations are high.

A few months back a food item review popped up on my YouTube channel about a petrol station nearby that had an upmarket deli/ restaurant style food that is open 24/7. This kind of thing is not very common in South Africa as most food places are chains and I am no fan of chains. This morning I just happened to be in the vicinity and decide to pop in and see for myself how good or how bad it was. The Idea came about from the renowned Marble restaurant which is actually above the garage. The idea was to bring top quality food to the people at affordable prices and just to liven the place up which I think they have succeeded in doing.

This is where you order the hot food where it is prepared in front of you.

The selection is rather large with a bakery, deli counter, wood fired pizza oven, burger bar, ice cream stand and a coffee counter. All of this inside a shop selling normal items along with high end imported items made for a decent shopping experience. They have top end items from all over the world which you don't normally see unless you are travelling. The truth is we are all paying over the top prices for normal items so paying over the top for imported items similar to local prices is not that far fetched. I blew $100 and it was not that difficult lol so I will only be going back in a few months or so, but I will be going back so it was a good experience.

I bought some of the Lemon cream Choux pastry eclairs which were seriously good which are the pastries in the white dish on the bottom shelf in the photo above. They were called Lulu's for some reason and need to look it up.

The area where this is situated is rather affluent and would need to be due to the costs of most things. The quality is seriously good and is literally a restaurant experience within a petrol station. There is nothing quite like it and what makes this so unique and why it is so popular. People don't mind paying for quality items considering even the average stuff is expensive in comparison now. There are restaurants I will never visit anymore due to the value not being there and you have always leave with a feeling of being robbed.

The pizzas are very good with the two main guys running the oven having spent time in Milan, Italy being trained. No corners have been cut here and why you pay the extra prices as there is no cheap ingredients or substitutes being used. there are some obvious things I would not buy like their doughnuts are 6 x more expensive than a normal shop and even though they are popular I see it as more like a gimmick. Every Wednesday at 1pm they have 300 doughnuts available that people queue for and once they are sold they are gone. This is a smart marketing gimmick due to people being habit forming and guaranteed it is the same people queueing every week.

I am sure once they have perfected this and the business has proven itself that they will replicate this in other parts of South Africa and will become a chain of sorts. I can think of only a couple of places where it would work and would need to be in an upmarket affluent area. The brains behind this owns 3 well known restaurants and anyone trying to replicate this will fall short as you need to know the food industry along with the quality and standards required.