The Service Station is a restaurant in the trendy suburb of Melville that capitalizes on its strategic location and the history of the building it’s in.

Melville is home to night clubs and small art deco-style homes in an old section of Johannesburg where virtually every house has pressed-steel ceilings, a local told me.

The Service Station is at the corner of Rustenburg Road and Ninth Street, and in another incarnation, it was an auto service station, hence the name. Now it’s part of a busy strip shopping center at a busy intersection.

The decor has a bit of the industrial chic feel with black-and-white checkered floors and a menu written up on a large chalkboard so it can be easily changed.

My waiter said the English breakfast was the special of the day so that’s what I ordered. Other breakfast choices included a cheese platter with brie, gorgonzola, olives, capers, fresh asiago, hot jam and bread. You could order salmon scrambled eggs with croissant or flapjacks with bacon and bananas.

Open for breakfast and lunch, this restaurant gets extremely busy on weekends. There aren’t a lot of other restaurants in the immediate vicinity. I lucked out by going early on a weekday morning when it was fairly quiet, which gave me time to make a few purchases from the restaurant’s fascinating gift shop.

The food you’ll get at the Service Station is mostly fresh, seasonal fare, Louw Kotze, the restaurant manager, told me. Lunch includes a vegetarian buffet, but you can also buy sausages at the deli handmade specially for the restaurant.

Kotze has been working at the Service Station 15 years, and has a butchery background. Part of his experience includes working at the Montage Beverly Hills, a five-start Los Angeles hotel. He’s more managerial than chef, he told me, but I got the feeling almost everything about the food was informed by him.

The restaurant’s array of cakes and confections were displayed prominently and included chocolate truffles, chocolate ganache and friand, a small French cake made with almond flour that’s often mistaken for a muffin. When I asked about it, Kotze brought me one to taste.

That’s my idea of great service, and the prices were moderate, making for a satisfying experience I’d be happy to repeat.