The Selati Station Grillhouse is the most interesting place to dine at in Kruger National Park!
The grillhouse restaurant is set on a railway station platform on the edge of Skukuza Rest Camp. To enter, you’ll come in through a waiting room staged with period furniture.
Most of the grillhouse seating is on the train platform. While waiting for your meal to be served there, it’s easy to imagine what it would have been like catching the train.
A Selati Express train steam engine with carriages is permanently parked there. One of the carriages is in original condition and there’s another where you can buy drinks and have them right there on the train.
The grillhouse food menu has a standard range of items with something for everyone. The meals are nice, but not spectacular. What makes for a really enjoyable outing though, is just being at the restaurant soaking up the atmosphere.
The grillhouse is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day. You can book a table there, but on most occasions you shouldn’t need to.
Selati Train History
The Selati train used to run to major cities in South Africa and was one of the first ways of bringing tourists to the park, as far back as 1926.
Travelling to Kruger National Park by train was one of the original ways for tourists to access it. At the time, the only other way to access the game reserve was on wagon tracks, which sounds much slower and weather exposed.
The locomotive at the station was built in 1949 and retired in 1978, the same year it was presented to South African National Parks. You can look inside the train’s engine room and see all the dials and steam gauges.
Although the train line to the station doesn’t run anymore, the platform is still adorned with signs indicating which platform to take and the distance of the journey.
If you’re staying at Skukuza or even visiting during lunch time, we’d highly recommend visiting the grillhouse for a great taste of nostalgia!