Panini ideal family treat

 Where is everyone? 
Panini’s is a brave new family restaurant recently opened at Honeydew Farm where Kerrigans used to be. Kerrigans flourished when Honeydew was at its busiest peak, when it was impossible to find parking inside the complex on a Saturday morning and the restaurant was full of the overflow shoppers enjoying coffee and lunches.
Those days are long gone. Honeydew changed hands a few years back and the decline started well before the casino economy set in. Success stemmed from detailed attention by a hands-on owner- manager. The garden was super productive — the agri manager once told me that no land remained unplanted for more than three days.
There was a broad network of suppliers, of speciality vegetables as well as the standard tomatoes, onions and greens.
It was the stop of choice for restaurateurs, embassies and expatriates as well as the rest of us.
The successful formula attracted rapid extensions — bakery, butchery, deli and then expanded to the other shops — a nursery, a pharmacy, the restaurant, a clothes and camping outlet. But when Honeydew was sold to a corporate chain the decline was rapid. Quality and range of produce decreased, the garden was soon going half to weeds and it was no longer a problem to find parking  — any day of the week. The eonomic chaos of 2008 saw the outlet almost dry up.
Kerrigans kept going a little longer but then the restaurant burnt down. Rumour has it that when power was restored in the middle of the night after a lengthy ZESA power cut, it ignited a gas leak and boom — the thatch caught in no time. Kerrigans was gutted as was the neighouring pharmacy and the Safari shop. Fire fighters managed to save the main farm shop but the customers deserted for more variety in the Nort-hern Suburbs — Woodm-eade and now Food and Veg city. Local is no longer lek-ker.
It took a year to rebuild the restaurant at Honeydew. Kerrigans never came back  and the space remained a pretty but deserted shell. Last year a pharmacy and an optician occupied the rebuilt pharmacy building.  The ruins of the safari shop have become a lovingly tended garden. A bakery has returned to the farm shop. Sometimes there is good meat and fresh chickens in the butchery. Quite often there are bargains from the garden. (lettuces currently 15cents!)
Paninis aims to be a family restaurant concentrating on good coffee and cakes, breakfasts, snack type lunches (paninis and baked potatoes) and a Sunday lunch special. Lunch was okay. We sat outside on the verandah looking at the activity in the nursery — re-opening as Golly’s Garden.
Guinea fowl and shiny black hens were moving in on the day we were there, an added attraction for the kids along with a playground next to the restaurant.
I had the blackboard special — steak and chips  US$7. Good chips, but steak was beaten into submission and overdone. My partner chose a Panini with a generous filling of bacon, brie and caramelised onion also for US$7.
Salad was little more than a garnish. The coffee is good and cakes on offer the day we visited were carrot cake and chocolate fudge. 
Breakfast works. A full farmhouse breakfast is US$6 and a tasty, substantial ham, cheese and tomato omelette is US$4.
It’s a nice space . . . needs some more life and a bit more attention to detail, for example butter instead of margarine at breakfast.  Service is friendly. Let’s hope this is the beginning of more light in the east.
l g.jeke@yahoo.com