The Marble Hospitality Group has launched a new premium “Pantry” store. The new outlet opens on the 22nd January 2026 at the Omni Square Shopping Centre in Bassonia, an affluent suburb in the south of Johannesburg. It is the company’s third Pantry store.

Founded in 2016 by chef David Higgs and businessman Gary Kyriacou, the Marble Group is a hospitality operator best known for its portfolio of upscale restaurants, including Marble, Saint, and Zioux. In 2022 it opened a small gourmet supermarket on a Sasol forecourt in Rosebank, Johannesburg. In November 2025, it opened a larger, standalone store in Hazelwood, Pretoria.

Pantry by Marble is aimed at the wealthiest tier of consumers in South Africa and is a gourmet-style outlet combining curated groceries, fresh food, chef-prepared ready meals, butchery, deli, wine and bakery sections, and fresh flowers. The new Bassonia store also features a coffee station with artisan pastries, a wood-fired pizza oven, and sells soft-serve ice cream.

Pantry by Marble joins supermarket chains Checkers and Food Lover’s Market at the Omni Square mall, which opened in November 2025. Pantry aims to differentiate by offering consumers a more curated, independent and experiential shopping experience, rather than catering to the weekly shop. It is also designed to target the “New South,” a local alternative to the premium retail typically found in Johannesburg’s more established, wealthy northern suburbs.

Marble’s Pantry is at the forefront of a growing range of gourmet-style stores specifically targeting the top tier of affluent consumers. In November 2025, Spar South Africa launched its first premium Gourmet store at the Zimbali Oasis resort in Ballito, Durban. Shoprite’s Checkers continues to expand its network of premium FreshX concept stores, which originally launched in 2017. Since 2019, Pick n Pay has implemented its Next Generation store concept to appeal more to higher-income consumers, most recently opening a revamped Hypermarket in Klerksdorp in November 2025.