As you drive up the hillsides of Kabaraga, on your final approach to Kabaare town, you suddenly come upon a brightly coloured building that invites you to stop and dine. This is The Food Station, a roadside restaurant that is about 5 years old.
It is not clear to me whether or not it is just a fluke that on my many drives past this joint I have never, I mean never, seen clients enjoying a meal in the place. Yet it is a very lovely place to stop, with a gorgeous view of the hills and valleys of Kaharo just below you. The eye looks at the hills in the far distance to the right that are in the neighbourhood of the Uganda-Rwanda border. Turn a little left and your focal point hovers over the sky above Kahondo ka Byamarembo. Look further East and you behold the spectacular beauty of that hill above Kaharo Primary School. Beyond that, 400 + kilometers away, is Kampala.
The problem with this facility is that it is less than 10 kilometers from Kabaare town, which makes it unattractive to travellers from Kampala who want to get into town and freshen up after their 6 to 8-hour journey. Those travelling out of Kabaare have just started their journey to Mburara and are presumably not yet hungry or in need of bathroom facilities. The locals are not yet in the habit of patronizing these sorts of places. But I suppose the owner did his or her feasibility study before putting up this San Francisco-style building.
I was intrigued by something I saw during my visits last year. What appears to be a hotel with guestrooms has been added to the facility. It is that yellow building on the left. Perhaps the goal is to attract overnight guests and boost the business. It may work if the room rates are more reasonable than the usual excessive charges that I see in many Ugandan hotels. We’ll see.