Kassim Ntongi's food kiosk in Kampala's Cooper Complex occupied a room only about six metres square. A 2012 Daily Monitor report says that shortly after 10 a.m. the room was full, while many customers stood patiently until diners finished and made space. At lunchtime, customers also endured a queue for food in the hot sun. Ntongi said the kiosk served more than a thousand people a day, including takeaway orders.
The wait here was not only for pilau. Seats, orders and servings had to pass through the same compressed room. Because demand exceeded the kiosk's physical capacity, the movement of one diner—finishing and leaving—determined when another could enter. A reputation for one cook's pilau turned a tiny downtown room into an unusually dense system of ordered waiting.