2-story shopping center featuring a food court with traditional dishes, plus clothing & rug vendors. The present Geylang Serai Market & Food Centre espouses the heritage of a number of markets in the Geylang Serai area that goes back to the pre-World War II days. There was a makeshift hawker shelter at the entrance of Kampong Geylang Serai, opposite Joo Chiat Road, which the municipality erected some time before 1930.
The locals called it Geylang Serai Market. Although it was closed soon after 1930, hawkers continued to ply there and the “market place” continued. When the Japanese Occupation started, the grounds of this market space was turned into an amusement park. After the war, the makeshift street hawker-market area made a comeback. By the early 1950s, the residents of the nearby Kampong Melayu started to visit this “Malay” market frequently for their marketing needs as they had no market of their own at Jalan Eunos.
Located between the bustling thoroughfares of Changi Road and Sims Avenue, the Geylang Serai Market has been a focal point for the local Malay community since it was built in 1964. For 42 years, stallholders eked out a living behind makeshift stalls in ramshackle conditions, sweltering under a rusting zinc roof. Finally, in 2006, the aging market was torn down as part of a government redevelopment project for the entire vicinity of Joo Chiat, and in 2010 was replaced by a two-storey concrete block with its distinctive three-tiered grand entryway.
Now, the airy 955-seater Geylang Serai food centre sits on the second floor, sharing the enclosed 9,000 sq ft floor space with a wet market and a battery of shops laden with clothing, groceries, household goods and other bric-a-brac. The market is a hub of frenetic activity from sun up to sun down, and retains its Malay roots, with plenty of Malay and Indian-Muslim specialities on offer.
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