Premier Convenience Store, also known as the Clifton Food Market, situated on the troubled Clifton…read moreStreet, is one of several convenience stores that are vying for diminishing trade since the one way system was implemented about a year ago. One of the ways that this store attempts to compete is by keeping its doors open as much as possible, and so it is open seven days a week from 8.00 in the morning to ten 'o' clock at night. It is also one of the few places that still stocks newspapers, and of course the discounted alcohol that it carries remains ever popular! Another thing that is impacting the smaller corner shops on the street is the fact that the council have granted permission for a Tesco Metro midway up the street. Although Premier Convenience Store is part of a chain, it is run as a family business, allowing the owner to make a reasonable profit for the responsibilities of running a complex shop of this kind. Conversely, Tescos employ people on minimum wage to work all hours, and then keep the profits for themselves. This means that huge sums of money leave the local economy, and end up in the pockets of the fat cats in London. This is really bad news for Clifton Street and Cardiff as well as Wales as a whole. What Cardiff and Clifton Street need more than anything else is for the council to stop making choices that will further entrench the recession, making it ever more difficult to turn these desperate times around. Cardiff needs a good flow of money within the local economy to endure the vicissitudes of the global slump. If this does not happen, the people of Cardiff can look forward to the prospect of working unsocial hours for an almost punitive wage, with all of the profits being siphoned out of the economy and shipped off to England! If this happens the people of Cardiff will not have the spending power to improve their lot over time!

Albany Convenience Store is one of several in this immediate area. It sells all of the usual…read moreproducts from fresh, tinned, snack and frozen food through to newspapers and magazines, booze, soft drinks and tobacco. Ice creams and confection are also available. Services include being a 'payzone'. So nothing too exceptional there! It is somewhat extraordinary in one respect however. Instead of leading with discounted alcohol, with the accompanying posters pasted all over the windows, Albany Convenience Store has a blackboard by the door where the latest offers are displayed. During my most recent visit they were offering two loafs of bread for £1.40, and Kingsmill Value at £0.89. Bread is a long way away from Special Brew or Dr. Carlsberg as it also known, and I commend this store for its more family orientated focus! You could also get two pints of milk for £0.89 on the day that I called in recently, although this price is pretty standard for this shop, and so it's not likely to have changed in the meantime.

Albany Convenience Store is one of your standard mini-market establishments. You walk in and you've…read moregot the papers and the magazines, you have a bit of fruit and veg, plenty of biscuits (though the cracker selection could do with some work) and so on and so forth but make your way to the back of the store. Here you'll find the booze section, stocking all the usual suspects. So what I hear you cry? Delve deeper and you'll find something of pure evil. It comes in black and red striped can. It costs £1.20. It has the potential to destroy everything in Roath / Cathays. I'm talking about Oranjeboom Extra Strong. That's right the student standby is now going for the trampy jugular with a brew weighing at a mighty 8.5%. You have been warned. At least if you do partake in a bout of total liver destruction, you can pick up a box Sugar Puffs on the way out for a comforting final meal. Albany Convenience Store is handy like that.

There are a huge amount of Spar shops in Cardiff... too many to count in fact! And, whilst I prefer…read moreto shop at independent convenience stores wherever possible, it is sometimes easier and cheaper to use Spar. The fresh produce is always in good condition, with a reasonable selection on offer. The fresh meat section is again always well stocked, and they sometimes do great seasoned selection boxes of mixed meats that are great for the BBQ, and really cheap by comparison to buying the same cuts individually. £6.00 will buy you about eight pieces of meat including lamb, pork and chicken. I really like the takeaway coffee service that Spar offer that works out a lot cheaper than going to a café. I paid £2.50 for a dreadful takeaway latte recently on City Road, and would have saved myself a quid if I'd made the effort to walk another two minutes up the road to Spar, where the standards are consistently maintained. One of the best things about this branch is that its open twenty four seven. There's something really decadent about buying all of your ingredients for Sunday lunch after a night out on the town... I derive some kind of perverse pleasure out of doing it. This branch also has an ATM.

Spar is another convenience store in a area that is so jam packed with every type of shopping…read moreexperience it's hard to get any reaction to the usefulness of a shop. Spar creates a clean shopping experience that is a mini supermarket feel with a selection of all the standard produce. It's main attraction are the hot food rissoles and the convenience of a standard shopping experience devoid of any human interaction. The food items are not cheap but they are kept low by the ever vigilance of the chains owners. Spar takes over where others fail and it's interesting that most people want to shop in a Spar where you don't interact with the staff than a local shop where you may actually speak to the shop owner.

This branch of Spar is a really small store on Queen Street in Cardiff city center, I came here…read morewith it being a 24 hour store to pick up some drinks to take back to my hotel. As mentioned even in the name of the store being an Express store, this store is really small, even considering the brand standards of Spar and that there branches seem tobl be small enough as it is. There were only two rows, one of which being the queue so it means at peak times you can be restricted from browsing due to having to queue at the same time as the store, this was inconvenient and in a way felt like you were being rushed out, due to a lack of things to look at and everything being really small and narrow. There were two members of staff on the till, they both seemed unwelcoming and not very friendly and didn't seem to be doing anything. To conclude, there are loads of similar places in Cardiff center, even close to my Hilton hotel so it would be worth taking a look at Tesco Express or Little Waitrose in lieu of this store, so sadly I feel it deserves a single one star.

No matter what you think of the Spar company, there's one thing you can't deny; Spar know how to do…read morebusiness. There's no doubt that our fair city is a lovely cosmopolitan shopalooza, but on top of this it is also a rapidly developing residential area, filled with a series of high rise apartment buildings where the executive earners of Cardiff are massing. Whilst the city could once have gotten away with the small town vibe it used to carry, Cardiff is no longer a place that can close its doors at 6pm every night; it has residents to think of. On top of this, you have the drunks who are attracted to any establishment still shining its lights at 5am, especially if they're selling Ginster's pasties to the masses. This is the market Spar have tapped into. Where Tesco and Sainsbury's close their doors at 8pm, Spar caters to everyone all night long. Admittedly, it's irksome having to shout orders through a waist high letterbox after 10pm, but it is a price people are willing to pay if that's the only place they're going to get a 4am cigarette refill.

For some reason, Splott Mini Market was closed when I recently visited Splott Road on a Monday…read moreafternoon. This is highly unusual. Splott Mini Market is a well stocked convenience store that would normally be open at this time. I checked the window for a notice advising customers of the reason why it was shut, but couldn't find one. All very curious! There's a fair amount of competition for corner shops on Splott Road and the neighbouring Carlisle Street, with the Co-op mini supermarket on Splott Road really turning up the heat for these small independent businesses. But, Splott Mini Market is usually open from early morning until after 10.00pm, meaning that it stays open way after the Co-op has shut. It stocks tinned and dry food, fresh veg, and all the usual convenience items such as savoury and sweet snacks, soft drinks, bread, milk and eggs etc.

I was a student in Cathays, many moons ago. So imagine my amazement when I returned to Salisbury…read moreRoad to discover that dispite the demise of 'Land of Green Ginger' and that big flea market (now a Tesco - not so amazing) that the wonderful T&A Stores has survived! T&A Stores can be seen to be a central, focal point for the student population of Cathays (well, there are always groups of them hanging around outside, anyway). They have everything you could ever want, well as a student anyway; booze, fags, food, stuff you forgot to get on your last trip to Tescos etc. etc. I was really pleased when i popped in there during a night out at CAI. Not only did they have the baccy I liked, the papers I liked, the mints and a smiling man behind the counter, they also had little footsy things to put on to stop my shoes rubbing. Saved my night! This is what convenience stores should be like. With convenient things in them! And, and this is the best bit, there is a cash machine outside that doesn't charge. And, if this is busy (with students mainly) THERE IS ANOTHER ONE INSIDE! Amazing. Whoever T&A are, they're a genius. Every student night out starts at T&A stores and ends in his kebab shop across the road!

Got some solid Frosty Jacks mate 10/10 would chug again. This is the place for cheap booze, T & A?…read moreMore like Tits and Ass because they've got me NUTTING.

More like Shopwrong, boom boom!…read more Commonly referred to locally as the Green Shop, this is a fairly big grocery store with a wide and extensive selection of Indian food and ingredients for every form of curry you could possibly conceive. There's also a small halal butchers at the back for your meaty needs, far too many cakes (I mean a bewildering amount of cakes) and the full range of Rubicon juices. The closer you get to the till the more like your average newsagents it becomes with the staples of newspapers, four packs and chocolate present. Sounds great doesn't it? Well there's one piece of advice I'll leave you with. Check the date on everything you buy. I once bought small tub of ice cream there that was over nine months out of date (I ate it, naturally). And it wasn't a one off either. It seems that they can't keep track of all the stock they hold. Or they simply don't care about trading standards. So if you require a massive bag of chevda or some spices for an authentic biryani then head here, but read the best before date before you part with your cash. Also one of the few places to have a free cash machine, two in fact, on City Road.

There is way too much in this shop…read more I can see why, and I can see how it might be a good thing to cater to the needs of as many people as possible and sell as much food as you can fit on the shelves without causing the whole building to sink into the ground, personally I'd rather visit the more sparsely stocked Tesco further up City Road. I only visit convenience stores when it's absolutely necessary to do so, but this store does tend to defeat the point of popping in to get something quickly when you have to spend half an hour finding it. I'm not totally confident that I want anything from this shop either, with most of it looking like it's been on the same shelves for years. And, despite the huge amount of everything else they sell here, I can never seem to get a general national or even local paper in here. Irish papers and papers in languages I can't read, sports and financial, sure. But you standard newspaper? Apparently not.

This is another corner shop that has a lot of different ethnic foods on offer. However, I feel that…read moreit towers above many of the other shops of its kind in this area for two main reasons. Firstly, it is very very clean. I appreciate this from a shop - I don't feel it's hard to keep a shop clean and I expect to feel comfortable about where my food as come from. Secondly, the prices are very good. When food is getting shipped it from abroad you expect to have to pay a little more, but I was quite pleasantly surprised. The food is quite similar throughout the shop, though maybe my tongue just isn't sophisticated enough to pick out the differences between Czech, Slovakian and Polish foods.

This corner shop-type store sells a good range of Eastern European and Middle Eastern food,…read moreincluding Czech, Slovakian and Polish products such as soft drinks, frozen food, tea and coffee, fruit and vegetables, health and beauty products, and so on. I love trying chocolate and sweets from other countries (just as you would when you are abroad on holiday), so I always enjoy looking around shops like this that sell different ethnic foods. There's plenty of stuff I don't recognise, and lots of interesting new things to try. I'm sure this place is to some extent in competition with the fairly similar 'Polski Sklep' Polish Shop in nearby Mackintosh Place, but I guess they each have their own loyal locals. Easy Shop is smart, clean, open seven days a week, and stocks relatively reasonably priced products as corner shops go - especially amongst those selling a wide range of imported foods, which tend to be more expensive.

Store facilities:…read more Parking, food to go, bakery, off license, ATM, Paypoint and lottery There are a huge amount of Spar shops in Cardiff... too many to count in fact! And, whilst I prefer to shop at independent convenience stores wherever possible, it is sometimes easier and cheaper to use Spar. The fresh produce is always in good condition, with a reasonable selection on offer. The fresh meat section is again always well stocked, and they sometimes do great seasoned selection boxes of mixed meats that are great for the BBQ, and really cheap by comparison to buying the same cuts individually. £6.00 will buy you about eight pieces of meat including lamb, pork and chicken. I really like the takeaway coffee service that Spar offer that works out a lot cheaper than going to a café. This option singles it out in my mind, and makes me more likely to be shopping at Spar than its nearest food chain rival Tesco Express, a few doors down. Nevertheless, there are a couple of great cafes on this street serving excellent coffee. I particularly like the new Moroccan café opposite, and if I have time I will always opt to buy a latte from here and sit outside watching the world go by. The coffee is far superior and Clifton Street is better than Eastenders! As for alternative convenience stores... there are plenty of these also. I really like Ozzy's at the top of the road, but I often use a couple of the others in preference to using the chains.

Well, a corner shop like any other really. It doesn't offer all that much and it doesn't fail to…read moredeliver all that much. It does offer a paypoint (for your electricity meter for example) which is good because many places around Cardiff don't offer those (There is one in K & C Stores, which is kind of on the opposite side of town, for people who live in that direction more), The prices aren't super cheap, just like in any corner shop so I wouldn't recommend doing your full week's shopping here. However, if you've run out of milk, or want a magazine, then it's a perfectly fine place. It's also CLEAN! A lot of corner shops seem to forget this quite important aspect of business. So points to them for that!