More recently I have found myself visiting this place called "item7", a pick-up/drive-by style restaurant that has now spread branches across South Western Nigeria.
Food and the culture it denotes is a very important part of our lives in Nigeria and perhaps in Africa. I'm sure you might probably have heard about the "jollof-rice wars" where African countries, especially West African countries compete to showcase how that the jollof-rice made in their country spercedes others.
This same rice, is the rock upon which item7 have built their empire馃榾. They basically started as a restaurant attending to students of the University of Ilorin and making the beloved jollof-rice available to them at affordable student-friendly prices. Their business model focused on "making food people WILL ALWAYS EAT even more inviting, affordable and convenient to pick up with minimal waiting-time."
Their Menu is in fact not a busy one - just the basics everybody will always eat. But it is made so well and quite affordable that you would want to eat it again and again without really tiring out.
They have packages you select from. You simply pay, get a ticket, move over to the erving area where you're served within seconds (the servers are so fast, you would think they are under duress to serve).
They started in Ilorin and have since expanded to Ibadan, Lagos and its environs with multiple branches in these cities.
They gave other restaurants a run for their money when they started and haven't reduced the quality of their food ever since. In fact they have maintained the prices for the most part. With just 2000 naira, you can have jollof and fried rice, plantain and beef - it's almost unbeatable. Sometimes I wonder how they make profit, but I guess they realize from profits found in numbers.
I took these pictures in this post quite late in the night and you can see how busy it still looks. Even with that, you would hardly spend an extra minute unaccounted for. They have also managed to keep their customer relations on point.
What do you think?
