Albany Convenience Store

Well I think the key word here is convenience. It always seems to be open after the other so-​called convenient shops have shut. And they have a really wide selection. I tend to only head in there for cigarettes and alcohol, normally when I’ve decided I quite fancy a beer, but I’m too late. They have a great selection — some of the rarer stuff and the shop is always well presented.
But it isn’t just booze — it is almost a little like one of those American stores you see on TV. It is bigger than it looks and the urge to browse is quite high.
Whenever I’ve been in there have been kids in buying sweets or the paper, and the staff always seem very friendly. In fact, on many occasions there has even been banter.
So yeah, nothing mind blowing, but a handy shop with everything you could need at short notice and without feeding any massive corporate machines.

Albany Convenience Store is one of your standard mini-​market establishments. You walk in and you’ve got 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.

As the claws of Tesco continue to take an ever-​firmer grasp on Roath (three and counting within easy walking distance of Albany Road), any convenience store sticking two fingers to the multinationals deserves a little credit. There’s a good magazine range here, plenty of thrifty deals on groceries, a well-​stocked beer selection and the sort of 20p chocolate bars that turn anybody into a nine-​year-​old again (hey, even fully grown men can gobble down a Cadbury’s Freddo or three occasionally). Not everything is shelved where you might expect — the paltry fruit range normally turns up in the refrigerators — and the counter staff rarely give customers making purchases more than passing interest. Yet given this or a suburban landscape decorated only in red, while and blue logos, Albany Convenience Store wins every time.

Albany Convenience Store is one of several in this immediate area. It sells all of the usual products 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.