A handy store which has been extended. Just when you think you're at the back of the shop beside…read morethe post office counter, you notice there's a passageway through to another room! The main reason I like using this shop is because the staff are always friendly and polite. Useful for newspapers and magazines, and tinned and packet foods.

This is a small local convenience, recently renovated and now a Premier shop. It's right on the…read morecorner of Leonard Street and Gnoll Park Road, and there's plenty of roadside parking. It's got a good selection of food and drink - lots of alcohol for sale, so you can see where a large part of their business comes from. They also have some good offers. Occasionally they'll do a mail drop to local houses which lists these offers. The shop also contains a small sub-post office, which is reviewed elsewhere. It's a very convenient and friendly store to stop at on the way home to Tonna.

A cute little Co-op (that used to be an All Days). It stocks most things you need in a convenience…read morestore - milk, bread, cakes, fresh fruit and vegetables, beers, wines, birthday cards, and the good thing about it is that they regularly have special offers, e.g. 2 for 1 on boxes of chocolates, discounted fruit, and deals on beer. It stays open until about 10pm and has a cash machine. The staff seem generally friendly and willing to help, although do tend to chat amongst themselves when serving you. Handy for small shopping runs or buying the essentials.

Friendly staff- but parking can be a problem. Always some sort of offer on booze and snacks-…read moreusually good wine at a knock down price!!

I like the store very much and it's staff are always very polite and helpful.it's also got a wide…read moreselection of sandwiches and also wraps as well.they also sell newspapers and magazines as well.and a lot of sweets and chocolate.and they also sell alcohol as well.

The One Stop' is a convenience store situated on the Esplanade in Porthcawl underneath the bottle…read morebank appartments. The store is reasonably big, and offers the usual corner shop selection of magazines, booze, sweets and snacks. They also have a better selection of fruit and veg and ready meals then most corner shops. There is a machine where you can buy coffee (although you can get a far better takeaway coffee on the other side of the road) and some freshly baked goods. One stop is a Tesco brand, and personaly I would much prefer it if this was a Tesco metro/ extra. They don't stock any Tesco brands in store, as the one stop brand helps people to forget that Tesco is attempting World Domination! Service, staff and stock are fine - and it's handy if you can get a space outside. All in all nothing special though. There is a cashpoint outside which is handy.

They have really good offers on alocohol here. Its a convenience store which is open late so the…read moreprices are higher than supermarkets. Its quite a big store and they have everything from fresh frut and veg to sandwiches to alcohol.

Cyfartha Stores is everything you'd expect of your local corner shop, chilled four packs (including…read moreHolsten Pils which you only ever seem to find in places like this, man that beer fell from grace, it used to be on the Tottenham Hostpur shirt years ago, not that that's a particularly graceful place from which to fall I suppose), a small selection of frozen Birdseye Ready Meals, all of the mainstream papers, a bit of bongo and the kind of sweets so laced with sugar and e-numbers you have to wonder of their legality. Cyfartha Stores packs in a lot of stock in a relatively small space and it is nice to see a small selection of fruit and veg for sale, and positioned next to the aforementioned sweets, though I imagine the kids at the local primary bypass it. With friendly service and all the essentials, what more could you ask for from your local corner shop?

A bit of a Jack of all trades is Cyfarthfa, being a convenience shop and all. And convenience…read moregenerally means slightly higher prices which is a bit of a shame, but is a lot better than have to fight the population to buy what you want. It's past my way home from work generally and have popped in many a time in the mornings for my newspaper and a bit too eat, and then a bottle of wine for the evening when the lovely is round.

This is a great little Spar store. It's got a free ATM, sells alcohol, rents DVD's, sells food and…read morecoffee to go (lattes are £1.50) and is also a Paypoint. What more could you want??? I love Spar stores for a whole host of reasons, the main one being that Spar is a franchise like Londis and the Life Style convenience stores, and so they are owned as independent businesses, and are not to be confused with supermarket chains. The essential and important difference is that supermarkets make their profits for the organisation, whereas shops like Spar are profitable for the individual owners. A friend told me an interesting statistic the other day... apparently 80% of the money spent at supermarkets leaves the local economy whereas 80% of the money spent at independent stores remains within circulation locally, which is great if it's true! If high percentages of money leave a localised area, then impoverishment will eventually ensue. So, to retain 80% of the money you spend within the area in which you live means the opposite! I can often buy things cheaper here than I can at bigger supermarkets. I find it interesting that we have all bought into the fallacy that supermarkets sell things cheaper. It's just not true in many instances! There's no denying that the massive supermarket chains indulged in a price war to kill off their smaller competitors, but when they felt that they had done as much damage as possible, they allowed their prices to steadily rise, allowing them to make more profit per customer. Perhaps what they didn't reckon with is that shops like Spar and Londis were going to preserve a lot more independently owned convenience stores than they thought. Not only is this competition essential to keep the larger stores in line, but it also means that local convenience stores have access to larger bulk buying discounts, thus often making them more able to undercut the big boys! Because Spar shops are all franchises, they can, if they want, participate in national promotions, and offer discounted items for a limited period. Not every Spar shop is the same. Being independently owned means that the proprietor of each shop can buy in stock that is culturally relevant to the local area in which they trade. This has to be seen as a distinct advantage Spar has over its larger rivals, but the main benefit to the local communities which they serve is that when locals shop at Spar they are making an investment in the future!

For me the choice is between this Spar and the Coop in Taffs Well. I'm afraid that the Coop comes…read moretop in almost every aspect. This shop often seems a tad sparsely stocked and the range of bread and cakes is not all that good. What they do have is a nice selection of whole foods from Nature Valley and some pretty good biscuits. Always good for a pint of milk. One thing that used to be a total favourite with my kids is the mini shopping trolleys (kids are not so mini any more so the shopping trolleys not so attractive). Watch out for the busy lunchtimes when the Radyr Comp kids are swarming.

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.

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.