I have some tall pantry cabinets, right next to the kitchen, in our laundry/mud room. They are wonderful and I would definitely do it again. They'd be even better with pull out shelves, but it's amazing how much you can store in a fairly narrrow space. It's nice to have so much at eye level, too, unlike base cabinets. Hope that helps :)

In my old kitchen, I had pull out pantries flanking the fridge (which was panelled like the cabs. You could get things out of them from either side, and the width was about 2 cerealboxes wide, height same as fridge. They were excellent. Pantry storage is easiest to use when its shallow. These panels dressed up the fridge and made it less of a monolith.

I have one 30" wide by 8' tall pantry. The bottom half (about 4.5 feet tall) has four roll-out shelves and the top half has fixed shelves. Without a step-stool (I'm 5'8") I can only use the bottom two shelves of the top half on a daily basis. The bottom shelf I store cereal boxes on their sides to maximize the depth, and allow the second shelf to be lower, but the second shelf I can only reach the stuff at the front. Stuff gets lost in the back of that shelf. The very top shelf I use solely for tall vases and things I do not use on a daily basis. I find this pantry to be plenty of space for my family of four.

My two cents: tall pantry cabinets are nice, and they can help balance out another tall object in a kitchen, like a refrigerator, but they're not 100% functional for day-to-day.

How small is your small galley kithcen? Would it feel overpowering having tall, heavy objects looming above you in a small space?

When we redid our kitchen a couple of years ago, we desperately needed food storage space. We initially had a 24" deep by 24" wide base cabinet, countertop, and a 12" deep by 24" wide wall cabinet. It was next to the refrigerator and had a wall on the other side. We replaced it with a 24" wide by 24" deep tall pantry. Two shorter doors on the top and two taller doors on the rest of it, total of 8' high. It fits really nicely in the space and is much more usable than the base & wall cabinet combo.

We absolutely LOVE the pantry cabinet, even though sometimes things get lost in the back. However, we should have (and are in the new house) gotten roll-outs so things won't get misplaced. But damn if that pantry doesn't hold a ton of stuff, in one place, and gives us fantastic storage. I refused to do the new kitchen without one, even though we're going to have a walk-in pantry there. The thing is, there are some items we just want to have handy in the kitchen, and the tall pantry is perfect for it.

We also happen to store my big KA mixer on the bottom shelf of the pantry, as well as a big pasta pot, neither of which fit elsewhere in my small-ish kitchen.

We knew the pantry was expensive (even without roll-out trays) before we bought it, but it's totally been worth it.

It took about the fifth re-read of my message to realize it came across as if I didn't like my pantry. I actually really like it! I meant that I don't use all of it as pantry storage because it's not practical for me. The four shelves at main level, I use all the time and store all my pantry goods very easily. I keep all my baking supplies on the very bottom shelf simply because I never bake. :-)

My old house had a pantry that was 18" deep and I liked it better than my current 24" deep one with roll-out shelves. Like itsallaboutthefood said, items don't get lost and there isn't a need for roll-outs (a cost-savings if you need it).

My amended two cents: if a tall pantry won't be overpowering in your space, I'd rather have that than a row of base cabinets. Much easier to access.

Ditto -exactly- both of geokids comments.

We love ours, which is 41.5 inches wide, 24 inches deep and has drawers on the bottom and 3 rollouts and one fixed shelf on the top. But before the remodel we just had an 18 inch pantry, so of course this is better. We don't have problems losing things and we can see everything on the rollouts. If your pantry will be 24 inches deep, I think rollouts are necessary. We use one of the drawers for pots and pans, but the rest is food and a few cleaning supplies. Here are some pics:

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