I tore out my closet pantry and am putting in a pantry cabinet - kitchen is still under construction - so I don't yet know how it his going to work out. There is no doubt it looks a million times nicer than the door and I think the pull outs will be nice, but I did used to store some things in my closet pantry that won't work in my cabinet probably, like brooms, a grocery bag storage things and a hook for aprons.

We decided to swap the fridge and the pantry - if we had not, the decision would have been a bit harder to rip something out to just replace it with an expensive cabinet....

Evaluate what you need to store and how accessible items would be in each situation. Look at hafele and rev-a-shelf websites which have many variations of
pullouts, organizers etc. I think Hafele may have a shelf which pulls out and down. Hafele manufactures most of the stuff cabinet makers utilize to "accessorize" their cabinets. You may find you can order the stuff on your own, design the closet to your specifications, and have your contractor install it. This is a less expensive option then buying a pantry from your kitchen guy.

We got rid of the closet and put in pantry cabinets. Soooo happy I did that. We are still mid-remodel but here's the
before and where we are now:

We opted for a walk in pantry closet rather than a cabinet. The cabinet looks nice, but for us the closet is a million times more functional in terms of both access and storage.

We ripped out our closet and put in pantry with roll out shelves. We also relocated the fridge in that spot.

I hated the closet. Besides the fact that nobody seemed to have the ability to close the doors, I was always looking at a mess because the thing was just so disorganized!

Before:

after, tiny photo but this is the same (almost) angle.

better, larger photo:

Missers and Bee - any pictures of how the pantry cabinets are organized? I think we will likely end up with a cabinet pantry but I am still not sure about the best organizational approach. The only part of my current closet pantry I will miss is the floor where I store the dog food.

Mine are just rollout shelves. They are adjustable so you can make them any way you like.

Behind the top door is a cabinet with a shelf in it.

I have a pantry closet in my current kitchen and it was the one thing I was so happy to see my husband sledge hammer out during demo! As Bee said, it was constantly a mess. Additionally, ours had no light, it was not quite a walk in but it was bigger than a wall closet. It took up an entire 4 foot corner of my kitchen. Items constantly expired as items got lost in the abyss. Looking forward to a pantry cabinet with roll outs in my new kitchen configuration.

We have a pantry cab that pulls out. 2 of the shelves come out with the door, and there are 2 more in the middle that roll out as needed.
If I had a deeper space, I'd do a closet, but at only 2 feet deep the ability to pull out shelves (without first opening a door that could get left open) is nice. Ours is from Ikea, so you may be able to just get the guts there and put a matching door to your kitchen on to save some money.

The bottom are roll out shelves and the tops are regular adjustable shelves. The cabinet on the left is one big one with two doors so the roll out shelves are huge. Nothing organized yet because the contractor is still working. Hopefully this weekend I'll be able to starting lining shelves and putting stuff away. :D