EmQuartier open. What a mess.

[SoiBiker]

There are probably still a few old-timers upset that they knocked down Washington Square to build a new mall.

[asdecas]

What a lot of sensitive farang flowers, getting their panties in a twist over the latest.....shopping mall. Only the 142nd in Greater Bangkok.

[berybert]

There are probably still a few old-timers upset that they knocked down Washington Square to build a new mall.

No its great that got knocked down. Having 3 super malls within a 5 minute walk of each other is just the ticket.

Might even be some that will walk it and not take a taxi.

[Benmart]

Feel better now?

The OP seemingly was sharing information and not soliciting for a wellness report.

Civility is in short supply on an overdrawn account.

[Benmart]

Ate there today. Huge crowd, all the Hiso Thai's were there taking pictures. A high number of the staff consisted of ladyboys. Free food samples were abundant. I nearly fell into an artificial pond in front of KFC due to the lack of a barrier.

To me the good news is that it's within 10 min walking distance and they have loads of restaurants to offer. The bad news is that traffic will make most taxi drivers reluctant to drive me home.

Does that save you a minute from using the shopping center opposite, or a minute more ?

Saving is an option best left to the saver. If it's good news to him, it's good enough for me since it's not my business to question his savings of time.

[smokie36]

There are probably still a few old-timers upset that they knocked down Washington Square to build a new mall.

No its great that got knocked down. Having 3 super malls within a 5 minute walk of each other is just the ticket.

Might even be some that will walk it and not take a taxi.

I'm sad the 60 Baht beer places on 22 are gone.

[bangon04]

Went to the new refurbished Emporium the other day. I was so impressed. The old food court which overlooked the park has been replaced by some pointless lifestyle shop. The new super replacement foodcourt now offers dishes at about 4 times the price, plus it has a weird system of big payment card which instead of being loaded in advance, you have to settle when / before you can leave. The cinema upstairs seems to have got more expensive too.They have done an excellent job of keeping out the riffraff, including me, from now on, and I can happily do without ever going there again.

So glad they have built more soulless shopping malls in the area.....I can visit the same outlets in many different but similar malls.

Emporium is part of a whole new cutting edge development. The city keeps evolving, prices keep rising, the culture changes. I'm sure there are plenty of other people that are not happy and will miss the way it used to be. It happens all over the world, every day.

It's nice that they are building such fancy new places (Terminal 21 also) further out of the central part of the city.

At least Terminal 21 does have a bit of variety and is fun for some window shopping. Emporium already had a lot of very empty high end brand names and jewellery and expensive clutter shops (stuffed animals and chandeliers) and has just become more elite. I am sure it will still do very well with certain families who can have it exclusively. Culture? Hope the rich Chinese have found it because there are not enough rich Japanese to keep it going.

I am not their target market, so they certainly won't care if I go there again...

[nahkit]

Nobody is forcing anyone to go there yet. Why not wait a month or so if uncompleted construction bothers you so much?

Surely the only way the op would know about the uncompleted construction is if he went there? Unless of course someone posted about it (hang on, somebody did, oh yeah, it was the op).

The op made an observation about his experience there, hardly a reason to jump on him.

[IMA_FARANG]

Went there on Saturday. This is supposed to be upmarket? I've never been in such terrible noise in any Thai mall in my decades here, and that's saying something. A nasty sterile bunch of designer stores with cacophonous sound, which I only braved in order to visit the new Kinokinuya bookstore - and even this is a downer, more like a book supermarket than the beautiful haven in Emporium that it has replaced.

----------------------------

THey have learned the western Capitalist vice...... anything for a profit..... quality be da__ned, just take their money and run.

[Jonmarleesco]

Past refurbishments have been subject to poor finishing; and the same group runs Siam Paragon ... which opened with a hole in an upper floor, through which a child fell on the day it opened.

[asdecas]

You are seeing the future in the making; one day it will be obligatory to consume. If you do not, or if your consumption begins to tail off as you age, the euthanasia clinic beckons.

You WILL consume.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Regarding mall food courts...

The old one at the Emporium always struck me as too small and way overpriced.

The food court that opened later at Terminal 21 is, AFAIK, among the best in Bangkok, in terms of being a relatively pleasant setting, good selection of different foods well-prepared, and very reasonable prices. Most of the individual dishes there still seem to be in the 30-40 baht range.

If the prices at the NEW Emporium food court are significantly higher than they were at the old one, then you'd probably be better off heading for El Gaucho's steakhouse and their 800 baht (NO JOKE) hamburgers...

[Stan42]

Regarding mall food courts...

The old one at the Emporium always struck me as too small and way overpriced.

The food court that opened later at Terminal 21 is, AFAIK, among the best in Bangkok, in terms of being a relatively pleasant setting, good selection of different foods well-prepared, and very reasonable prices. Most of the individual dishes there still seem to be in the 30-40 baht range.

If the prices at the NEW Emporium food court are significantly higher than they were at the old one, then you'd probably be better off heading for El Gaucho's steakhouse and their 800 baht (NO JOKE) hamburgers...

The price for the same dish is 50 thb more expensive at the Emporium than at the Siam Paragon, but to get to the Siam Paragon and back I need to spend more than 50 thb. So it's good news to me. As for quality and quantity, MBK still has the tastiest and largest food portions of any food court.

[Stan42]

There are probably still a few old-timers upset that they knocked down Washington Square to build a new mall.

No its great that got knocked down. Having 3 super malls within a 5 minute walk of each other is just the ticket.

Might even be some that will walk it and not take a taxi.

I'm sad the 60 Baht beer places on 22 are gone.

That's not due to the EmQuartier though, prices already rose a few years ago and many open air bars closed.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

I get it... all these Thai mega retailer companies need and want to make money...

But seriously, when it comes to malls, it seems like we're kind of reaching the saturation point.

Within 15 minutes on Skytrain/MRT now, we've got almost a DOZEN places:

Siam Paragon

Siam Center

Siam Discovery

Siam Square 1

CentralWorld

Gaysorn Plaza

Central Embassy

Terminal 21

Emporium

the new M place

Central Rama 9.

At least with Central Embassy, a lot of the eateries there are relatively unique and not re-treads of the same places located in every other mall.

But for a LOT of the stores and shops across these malls, they're just copies of the same stores in other locations.

Edited April 3, 2015 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[chubby]

in the words of jello biafra , kill the malls, and your TV IMHO...... who cares for another "quartier, paragon, embassy" waste of space.....

[berybert]

Went to Tesco Lotus in On Nut today. shabby old center. Then went to E=mcq2 district.

Way more people walking around On Nut than the new place.

Its ok being shinny and new for a little while. But if you cant even make it to shinny when you are new maybe best not to bother.

[KED]

My life is not affected by the opening of this new mall; however, it is sad that is just a big clone mall with nothing to set it apart from the other malls within a stone's throw. The floor plan just seems to be tile and escalators - not much architectually interesting and no shops I haven's avoided before. I think Terminal 21 is better designed - but I only visit there when meeting others.

[metisdead]

Posts containing content copy and pasted from another forum have been removed.

[SoiBiker]

So, people who dislike malls don't like new mall.

What a shocking revelation.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

I don't have any basic problem with malls.

But, I wasn't impressed by EmQuartier on initial review. Very vertical and kind of weird having the place divided into three kind of separate sections. Makes finding places and going anywhere kind of awkward.

And then, of course, they opened the place before it was finished, with the elevators not working, the entire upstairs restaurant section not open, and lots of construction stuff still unfinished.

All in all, Terminal 21 is a more pleasant, accessible experience. And if you don't particularly relish elbowing with crowds, even Central Embassy has a quite good selection of restaurants upstairs that have more of a "uniqueness" element than most other malls (meaning having other than the same old places you'll find in pretty much every mall around Bangkok).

The wife and I, meanwhile, had to do some shopping for a particular purpose at the Ekamai Gateway mall yesterday, and were surprised to see that most of the upper level floors (2-5) were mostly empty -- even moreso than in the early days after the place first opened.

You have to wonder, especially with the Thai economy not in great shakes, is there some limit to just how much new mall space a central city population can support?

[lujanit]

I don't have any basic problem with malls.

The wife and I, meanwhile, had to do some shopping for a particular purpose at the Ekamai Gateway mall yesterday, and were surprised to see that most of the upper level floors (2-5) were mostly empty -- even moreso than in the early days after the place first opened.

You have to wonder, especially with the Thai economy not in great shakes, is there some limit to just how much new mall space a central city population can support?

I agree with this sentiment. We live in Taling Chan, Ratchapreuk Road. There are now a number of shopping malls and quite a few are half empty of tenants. The Walk have virtually closed down their 'Market Walk'. Homeworks has vacant shops on both levels. SB (Crystal) has never filled 25% of their non-furniture floor space. A Thai friend said he other day 'who goes shopping for furniture every day?'. It will be interesting to see how long the tenants in the furniture section survive.

There are a couple of centres that have adopted the 'open air' approach to a Mall. This means no huge electricity bill for air-con. Okay if you like walking between shops in the heat, or the rain when it comes.

The evidence from all the empty shops in these Malls suggests the population or income is not there to justify their existence. Am I missing something in the Thai physic?

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

We went out for lunch today and also to save on the aircon at home in the afternoon heat.

Stopped by the remodeled Emporium to take a look around. Nicely remodeled visually with a much better entrance from the BTS station. Despite the makeover, looks pretty much like most of the same retail shops as before. But the most noticeable turnover has been up on the restaurants level, where several formal restaurant that were there before, including the Japanese Fumi, are now gone.

And of more import, the small individual restaurants area where Dukes used to be just past the elevators and Burger King there has now been turned into a Central-style food court of the type that I really dislike, where you get a ticket upon entry (can't even enter without one) and then when you exit everything charged to your card is paid at the cash register. But more to the point, the Food Court prices there probably start at a low of 65-70 baht for a few things, but tend to average more in the 130-200 baht per dish range -- at a Food Court! Thanks, but, NO THANKS!

Also popped over to EmQuartier for a look around a week or two after our original visit. At least the elevators were working today, and more of the dining options were open. The Taiwanese fried chicken place still had a pretty long line of people waiting for their fill down on the lower food court level.

But unless I'm missing something, the whole set-up still strikes me as really annoying in that as best as I can gather, there are not connections between the three main mall sections on all levels there. I'm not sure on how many -- the ground level and one upper level as least, not sure if there are more. But as we were walking around, every time we'd want to go somewhere, we'd run into a dead-end corridor and have to go back to the elevators or escalators.

I just don't understand the design concept there at all!

[Rumblecat]

Yeah, I struggled to get to grips with the layout a little. It doesn't seem clear which section is which and the signposting isn't great. It was quite busy though- busier than Central Embassy- so maybe it'll be a success.

Annoyingly went to see a film, had checked the time before hand, and it was listed on the automated ticket booking, but it kept coming up saying all seats were sold out (which, considering how empty the cinema space was, didn't seem to make sense). Turned out they weren't actually showing the film and the guy there said the reason that showing was listed (on the website and at the actual cinema) was "a computer problem".

So screw that, not going to waste my time going there to watch films on the off-chance that they're actually showing them. On the bright side Kinokuniya there isn't too bad, much better than the Central World one anyway.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Funny you should mention the Kino bookstore there, which is indeed a very nice and large store that is already open.

My wife deals with books as part of her job, so, we were doing some business there a couple weeks ago, and I had my wife ask the staff there about the relative size/collection at the EmQuartier shop.

The staff there said that their existing Kino shop at Siam Paragon is larger with a larger collection. Though just from a casual look, the two locations look pretty comparable to me. (CentralWorld, not even close).

------------------------

Today, I was back at EmQuartier, because I wanted to sample some of the products from the Little Mermaid Japanese-style bakery on the ground floor level there, adjacent to the Central Market. The bakery has quite a nice selection and has some different things from what you'd find everywhere else.

While at the mall, I also stopped at the info desk and asked again about the still-closed upstairs main restaurants area -- as opposed to the basement Food Court area that's really busy, including with the Taiwanese fried chicken shop. Was told the upstairs restaurants area now is supposed to open "by the end of the month."

[ExpatJ]

Gourmet market in both the new and old emporium seems to have become more of a local Thai product shop than imported product grocery store. Really small selection of imported cereals, frozen goods, and others compared to 2-3 years ago. Villa market now has far more variety of imported foods.

Edited April 21, 2015 by ExpatJ

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

From all my various shopping stops, I've found that the Central Food Hall at Central Chidlom probably is the best option for imported stuff in Bangkok, at least among the different Central (Central Chidlom, CentralWorld) and Gourmet Market outlets (Emporium, Paragon, EmQuartier). I took a quick walk thru the EmQuartier market the other day, and found it no better than any of the other existing outlets.

Central has the Waitrose brand from the UK, among others. But Villas also at least used to have a lot of imported things that the other market chains did not have. Lately (post coup), however, I'm finding that the selection/stocking in my local Villa markets has gone SERIOUSLY downhill.

My Villas simply are no longer carrying a lot of imported items that they previously had regularly stocked for years. I've asked the store manager at my local branch about it, she acknowledged they are having problems with accessing some imported products (though she's unclear about exactly why), and has no idea that it's going to be resolved anytime soon.

[Rumblecat]

Ah I wondered about Villa as well, I'd noticed a lot of stuff I used to buy there was gone, I figured I was just unlucky.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

That Villa issue prompted me to open a separate thread this morning:

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/818955-anyone-notice-their-favs-disappearing-from-villa-markets/

Nice to know I'm not the only one noticing the changes.

[dantilley]

And of more import, the small individual restaurants area where Dukes used to be just past the elevators and Burger King there has now been turned into a Central-style food court of the type that I really dislike, where you get a ticket upon entry (can't even enter without one) and then when you exit everything charged to your card is paid at the cash register.

The payment system sounds like the same as they have at MBK 5th floor, where the more upmarket food court is. Makes more sense and is more efficient than the topping up card procedure, or the paper tickets like at MBK 6th floor.\

Disappointing that all those restaurants have gone though. Are the others in the front area still there, like Piri-Piri? And Mos Burger?