Fitzpatrick Supermarket? The Robina Departmental Store? Tivoli Cafe? If these names do not sound familiar to you, then you must not have been around to see these places in Orchard Road in the 1970s. Jerome continues with more memories of Singapore’s most famous shopping district.

The Tivoli Coffee House was once a popular haunt along Orchard Road for people of all ages:

Tivoli in Singapore wasn’t so much there to amuse us in the way that the gardens from which it got its name would have done, but provided amusement to our palates. It was a coffee house, what would today be called a cafe. Back in the 1970s, coffee houses were everywhere, appealing to young and old in search of a banana split, a vanilla milk shake, or perhaps an iced coffee, which could be savoured in the cool comfort of the air-conditioned premises that attracted many. The Tivoli, which opened in 1971, perhaps drawing on the inspiration that its name provided, was the coffee houses of all coffee houses, serving its selection of food and beverages twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. By day, it drew couples on an outing, families out shopping, and by night it was a popular watering hole, attracting a regular crowd of locals, expatriates, and the boisterous men serving with the Australian and New Zealand forces in Singapore. The Tivoli Coffee House was then located in a two storey building, one that was purposed built as a car showroom that housed Orchard Motors, the distributor for the General Motors (GM) brands such as Vauxhall and Chevolet, converted into a shopping complex around 1970 and named The Orchard.

Step back in time and learn what Orchard Road was like in the 1970s in Jerome’s post, The magical world of the Tivoli that was on Orchard Road.