On the last day of September 2024, the Bukit Timah Market and Food Centre will be officially closed, spelling the end of its history that spans almost half a century.

Built in 1975 at a cost of $1.4 million, the double-storey Bukit Timah Market and Food Centre houses a wet market and shops on its ground floor, and hawker stalls at the second level. In total, there are almost 180 market and hawker stalls.

It was first used for the relocation of the street hawkers plying along Jalan Jurong Kechil in the sixties and seventies. The hawker centre later became a popular eating place among food lovers with its delicious carrot cake, satay bee hoon, Hokkien mee, chicken rice and other local delights.

The prices of the hawker food at Bukit Timah Food Centre in the late seventies were $1 for a plate of carrot cake, 80c for char kway tiao and 70c for a bowl of fishball soup.

Several Bukit Timah Food Centre’s foodstalls are almost as old as the hawker centre itself. The likes of Sin Chew Satay Bee Hoon, Xie Kee Hokkien Mee, Seng Heng Hainanese Chicken Rice, Yong Seng Satay and He Zhong Carrot Cake are now helmed by the second or third generations, passed down by their parents or grandparents who had started as street hawkers, before shifting to Bukit Timah Food Centre in the late seventies or eighties.

In 1977, some of the vacant stalls at Bukit Timah Market were allocated to the owners who lost their stalls in the nearby Beauty World Market fire.

Rude and rowdy hawkers were a concern for the Environment Ministry in the late seventies. In 1978, Bukit Timah Market and Food Centre topped the ministry’s list for the most cases of incidents; it had two cases for fighting between hawkers, and one for alleged rudeness to customers. The Boat Quay Food Centre, Empress Place Food Centre and Esplanade Satay Club each had two cases of rude hawkers.

Hence, an amendment to Environmental Public Health (Hawkers) Regulations was passed in April 1978 with a new law enforced. Under this new law, stallholders could have their licenses suspended, cancelled or revoked for offenses such as gambling, fighting, vandalism and harassment to customers in the market or hawker centres. The hawkers were also not allowed to stop customers who had the rights to the free sitting at any tables and chairs in the markets and hawker centres.

In the same year the new law kicked in, a total of 22 hawkers from various markets and hawker centres in Singapore received warnings from the Environment Ministry.

In July 1983, a pressure cooker at one of Bukit Timah Food Centre’s stalls suddenly exploded, damaging the roof and injuring seven people, including the stallholder’s children and several customers.

In 1985, Bukit Timah Market was one of the nine wet markets in Singapore to debut the sale of frozen pork to consumers. It was part of the “Eat Frozen Pork” campaign as Singapore was targeting to entirely phase out pig farms by the end of the eighties.

In the eighties, just a decade after its opening, Bukit Timah Food Centre was rated as one of Singapore’s dirtiest hawker centres. In 1985, the building was bothered by a persistent pungent smell due to three drainages choked by the garbage and oily remnants of food dumped by irresponsible hawkers. In 1988, a news article criticised the hawker centre as a dirty and oily place infested with rats.

The poor hygienic issues finally got resolved when the hawker centre was closed for repair works, repainting and cleaning up of stalls from July to September 1988. The roof was also replaced to allow better ventilation. When Bukit Timah Market and Food Centre was reopened for business later that year, it was reported that there was a marked improvement in the cleanliness and orderliness.

In 1990, Bukit Timah Market and Food Centre’s toilets, along with the ones at Chomp Chomp (Serangoon Gardens), East Coast Lagoon Food Rendezvous and Taman Serasi Food Centre, were upgraded to new modern ones.

Bukit Timah Market and Food Centre was closed for two months in 1997 for upgrading works. In late 2002, it was renovated again under the Hawker Centres Upgrading Program.

The hawker centre’s roof was modified into a higher wing-shaped design to allow better ventilation. The tables were changed to rectangular ones with side extensions to merge with adjacent tables. The renovation works cost $4 million, and the rejuvenated Bukit Timah Market and Food Centre was officially reopened on 8 March 2003.

In a 2003 survey, Singaporeans voted Bukit Timah Market as their favourite market. Maxwell Food Centre was voted as the locals’ favourite hawker centre and Best Coffee Shop at Jurong West was the favourite kopitiam.

Bukit Timah Market and Food Centre will be demolished after its closure in end-September 2024. Replacing it will be a new five-storey integrated development expected to be ready by 2029. This new building will comprise Bukit Timah Community Club, a school indoor sports hall and a new market and food centre.

Half of the existing stallholders at Bukit Timah Market and Food Centre, meanwhile, will be relocated to a temporary site at the nearby Jalan Seh Chuan to continue their businesses.

A last look at Bukit Timah Market and Food Centre:

Published: 29 September 2024