Marble Hospitality has announced plans to open two new Pantry stores by the end of this year. One will be located at The View in Fourways, a new upmarket lifestyle destination currently under construction, while the other will open at Mall of Africa in Waterfall City, Midrand. Once completed, the additions will mark the sixth Pantry store format launched in just five years and signal the next phase of the brand’s structured national expansion strategy.
What began in 2022 as a bold reinvention of the petrol station convenience store has evolved into a scalable, vertically integrated retail platform spanning forecourt, standalone, corporate, and mall pop-up formats.
By the end of 2027, Marble Hospitality aims to operate 10 Pantry locations across Johannesburg before expanding into other regions.
“When we launched Pantry in Rosebank, it was a calculated risk,” says Gary Kyriacou, Co-Founder of Marble Hospitality Group alongside David Higgs. “We wanted to take the most ordinary retail format in South Africa – the forecourt convenience store – and rebuild it as something people would actively choose to visit. The goal was to prove that convenience could be elevated, design-led and food-first. Once we saw the demand, the next step was building a system that could scale.”
From Concept to Category Leader
Rather than copying existing forecourt models, the team mapped Pantry around real consumer missions: morning coffee, last-minute dinner solutions, gifting, indulgence and daily essentials. The result was a store that could meet multiple needs in one visit – encouraging frequency, longer dwell time and broader basket spend.
“Pantry was built around real-life rhythms,” says Gary Kyriacou, Co-Founder of Marble Hospitality Group. “If you can solve more than one need in a single, well-designed space, you stop being a convenience stop and start becoming part of people’s daily lives.”
Design played a central commercial role in achieving this shift. Layout, lighting and materiality were intentionally used to slow customers down, encourage exploration and drive basket expansion. “Design isn’t aesthetic – it’s strategic,” Kyriacou adds. “If customers feel good in the space, they stay longer. And when they stay longer, retail performance follows.”
The commercial results validated the model early. Within the first month of trading, the Rosebank Pantry exceeded financial targets by 25%. Kyriacou adds that early sales were driven by high-frequency essentials such as bread, coffee and takeaway meals, while broader retail categories scaled as customers became more familiar with the offer. Importantly, this growth was achieved without discounting and was instead driven by experience, product quality and repeat visits.
Industry recognition followed soon after, with Pantry named Best Forecourt Store in the Best of Joburg Readers’ Choice Awards, reinforcing that the concept had moved beyond novelty to set a new benchmark within the category.
Expanding the Pantry Format
Following early commercial validation, 2025 marked a shift from concept validation to strategic rollout.
In October, the first standalone Pantry opened in Hazelwood, Pretoria, introducing expanded seating, larger fresh counters and an extended retail range. The same month saw the launch of a mall-based pop-up at Mall of Africa – a condensed format designed to introduce the brand to high-footfall retail audiences.
In January 2026, another standalone Pantry opened at Omni Square in Bassonia, demonstrating that the model is adaptable across different urban densities and customer profiles.
“Each format serves a different purpose,” says Gary. “Forecourts win on convenience. Standalone stores increase dwell time and basket size – while embedding us into customers daily lives. Pop-ups and corporate formats build brand awareness and allow us to test new markets.”
The upcoming Fourways and Midrand stores represent a broader Johannesburg-focused expansion strategy.
“Over the next year, we’re prioritising Johannesburg nodes such as the East Rand, Bryanston and Morningside,” Kyriacou says. “From there, the plan is to expand into the Western Cape and then nationally.”
“The vision was never to build a single standout store,” Kyriacou concludes, but rather to create a scalable platform capable of adapting to different precincts without compromising consistency, quality or customer experience. As the Pantry footprint expands, the focus remains on refining a model that integrates hospitality, operational control and retail innovation in a way that supports long-term, sustainable growth across diverse urban markets.
