Oh I have thoughts!!! We put ours in the middle, and guess what? Most people grab the cabinet by the top corner. Ugh. After they were in, I thought, that should have been up in the corner. Here is a picture: (the knobs are crystal, they don't look it in this photo, but you can see them)

The thing about a pullout pantry is that there's restricted access to the middle. I think 12"-15" is ideal, though 18" isn't out of the question. It might mean moving this or that to get the other thing, but can be done. That's assuming that you can access the pantry from both sides. 18" is definitely the limit if you can only get in from one side. Looked at the other way, 18" is about the narrowest cabinet that's comfortable to get into with your arm extended to the back. If you go with the pullout, it might make sense to do a full height one, or a pullout on top as well as bottom. Roll out trays are much easier to use, especially for lowers, than pullouts because you can get into them from above rather than only from the side. What they have better than drawers for a pantry is the ability to see in over short sides, and the ability to see all the trays in the cupboard at once rather than having to remember which one has what in it. If I were in your situation, I'd check to see if there were any difference in the size of the tray between the pullout and roll out. I have a feeling (which I'm assuming was created by something I learned along the way) that there might be more tray space in the pullout. If not, then it's not a matter of how much you can store but how easily you can get at it. So, if you have roll out trays, where does the door go? Do you have a 90" hinge? Most Euro style hinges are 90 degrees. Which means that the door is blocking on side of the trays. Perhaps you even have a wall there? I have 170 degree hinges, but those are big and can also can interfere with what's inside, which could be a problem in a narrow pantry. But even with a 90 degree door, you can get in from the top. Plus, it's easier to get into the pantry to retrieve something that slipped over the side. With the pullout pantry, you might want to get a trigger gripper, which can be helpful. Just remembered what might tilt it decisively to the rollouts: You can put more roll out shelves in a pantry than you can trays on a pullout. Because all the trays on a pullout come out at once, you need air space between them to get stuff in and out. With roll outs, you can have trays that are one can high, or one box of X high, and have only an inch margin to the next tray up. In that way, you can fit a lot more in the same cupboard.

It really depends on how you work and whether you have room in the main working part of the kitchen for some of your food items. I had a kitchen with a pantry across a wide aisle from the kitchen itself. There was little cabinetry in the kitchen itself -- more dish storage and such across from the breakfast nook so everything, including a little of this spice or that had to come from the pantry. And it was about 7 or 8 feet deep with narrow shelves on one side. I loved the kitchen when we bought the house and couldn't stand to work in it by the time we left. My corner pantry in this house was an improvement in location, but not organization. I changed it to pantry cabinets with rollouts and a pullout that are actually a bit further form my main work areas (a few steps), but I also use some of the space in my main work area for flour, sugar and other baking supplies in deep drawers, my spices in a top shallow drawer and oils, vinegars and such right at hand above. I don't have to make as many trips to the pantry as I did before and it's not as far. For me, this is working out best of all. I can see either of your design choices working out well, but you need to thing about the type of cooking you do, how you work and how you would use the space -- what you would store in each cabinet and drawer. It's a pain to break everything down that much, but it's necessary to see how it all works for you.

loves2cookfor6's pull-out is beautiful! I guess it really depends on the space you have available. Full pull-outs only seem useful if they are quite narrow. The beauty of individual pull-outs is that you have access to the items from both sides, FRONT and TOP. I like pulling an item off the shelf without having a shelf above blocking access and light. In my mind, the full pull-out doesn't function much differently from fixed shelves except for giving access to 2 sides. I used to love going into Ikea showrooms and opening the full pull-outs. They were fun and seemed so clever! But when it came time to choose a 15" wide Ikea pantry for our laundry room, I abandoned the full pull-out (which I really thought I wanted) for the practicality of the individual pull-outs. I couldn't think of a single functional reason for getting the full pull-out. In our house, having drawers on the bottom of our kitchen pantry works well since only the bottom drawer is blocked if something is left on the floor in front of the pantry. I keep my most used items in the front of our pantry shelves. I just have to open the cabinet doot to grab one of these items instead of pulling out anything.