The Nader Petroleum Group, a well known second generation family of Sydney petroleum retailers, yesterday opened a new convenience cafe site which represents clear leap ahead of current best industry practice.
Located in an upcoming industrial park at Smeaton Grange about 75km south west of Sydney, Urbanista sits on a newly occupied 5,386 square metre site which combines refuelling facilities for cars and heavy trucks.
“We’ve only been open for two hours and we’re already on our third batch of pies,” an excited Eddy Nader told C&I WEEK.
Looking at the cafe area, it’s easy to see why. It’s a step ahead of almost everything else in the industry, with a fresh but earthy designer look and state of the art merchandisers for hot and cold food. The console area looks like nothing out of a convenience store, with no confectionery or tobacco cabinets visible anywhere.
The customer enters the store and is greeted by what Eddy Nader calls his “Dance Floor”. It’s an open space area with low set timber clad ice cream freezers surrounded by soft drinks fridge, confectionery and flavoured milks clearly visible to the customer.
The customer is greeted by Eddy's Dance Foor where the key snacking and beverage ranges are promonently displayed
“These are our core products and we wanted them all to be immediately visible and within easy reach of our customers”, said Eddy.
“In order to make space for a bit of cafe seating, we’ve cut back on our dry grocery offer. But we haven’t forgotten that we are a service station and a truck stop first and foremost and we have not neglected the motoring needs of our customers. We have an extensive range of automotive products and safety products for truckies which is far more extensive than you see in other stores.
“But we are particularly proud of the new Urbanista convenience cafe and, with a huge customer base of local workers close by, we are expecting great things from it.”
Nader Petroleum says that it expects to pump around one million litres per month with store sales in excess of $300,000 per month for the new site.
This story first appeared in Convenience and Impulse Retailing.