Mall Profile #13: Guildford Town Centre, Vyas Saran

Food Court In Session Ep 13 Guildford

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Guildford Mall (they say its Guildford Town Centre but they should get a grip)
Location: Surrey
Opened: 1966, extensively renovated in 2013
Approximate number of stores: 220
Anchor tenants: Walmart, London Drugs, H&M, Sport Chek, Landmark Cinema (outside the main mall)

Guildford Mall was the site of a lot of firsts for me: first haircut, first back-to-school shopping at places like Grand & Toy (a criminally misleading name), first date, first kiss (much time separated these events), first time being profiled by cops, first time smoking weed (these were non-contemporaneous events), and more recently, my first podcast recording in a food court. 

Growing up, Guildford was our “third space”, the only place for me and my immigrant friends to hang out since none of our parents wanted us dirtying up their houses, but it required a trek over a Highway 1 overpass from Fraser Heights where we lived. Sometimes that was an issue. During the height of a gang war in the late 2000s, drive-bys and targeted hits were completely normal  — I like to brag about how our gangs were multicultural, remember the United Nations? — and because we only had a couple of roads in and out, RCMP check-points blocked entry and exit practically anytime someone heard a loud noise. If you were at the movies (once Famous Players, now a Landmark) next to the mall a little too late at night, it wasn’t a sure thing how you would get back home. 

That helps paint a picture of our suburb back in those days, when Guildford Mall – whose parking lot was arguably the reason Surrey was the car theft capital of North America – knew it wasn’t the happening, shiny, or even safe place to be. The mall was built in the 1960s to support development off the newly constructed Port Mann Bridge and Trans-Canada Highway, but for many decades and renovations it was sort of like Surrey itself: full of things, but seen by many as a cultural backwater. 

Now Surrey has ambitions of being the centre of Metro Vancouver, and Guildford Mall is GTC, a modern Metrotown rival with an Apple Store, Aritzia, Sephora and Uniqlo — the only mall other than Metrotown, Richmond Centre and Coquitlam Centre that can claim that level of mass upmarket presitge. A massive 2013 renovation, including a new food court and a Wal-Mart Supercentre, has arguably helped Surrey buck the trend of being the easiest source of open-mic material in Vancouver.

Guildford did a lot of work to build a nice mall, but for many years I found every reason to dismiss it. I ran away from Surrey and ran to Commercial Drive because I couldn’t stand the cookie cutter Americanized life, centred around driving and malls and the atomization that comes with it. 

Going to the new Guildford Mall feels kind of like going back to my parents’ house: there’s a new car in the driveway, but the toilets don’t work; the fridge is fancy, but it’s full of expired ingredients; the new TV is the size of my living room, but they left the motion smoothing on. Yes, I am a hater. No matter what fancy brands you can jam into Guildford, I’ll focus on the peeling walls, upsettingly basic food court choices, and the dimly lit stores that still sell fake Christian Audigier studded shirts.

Here are some questionable things. 

• The food court is mid, containing nothing (with one exception) you wouldn’t expect from the most basic western Canadian food court. For being the biggest mall in a city boasting the largest South Asian community in Canada, there is nothing to truly reflect that. It also lacks any great Asian options outside of the classic 2-3 item on rice joint. Guildford could do it, and the T&T across the street has a food court that is so good that I’d call it an embassy for Crystal Mall. But for now, the food court has to settle for just Mixylicious, a Filipino stall which is very, very good for food and drinks (including an ube milkshake). 
• Can we talk some more about land beyond the overpass? It’s a little haunted, a bit of a void, with store brands you strongly believe have gone defunct. If you thought a brand died because they’re not in Pacific Centre or Metrotown, just come out to Guildford, because it’s probably still around here somewhere. I actually think its quite charming, but this overpass was supposed to lead to a massive mixed-use area with more shops, an apartment, and a lake. Instead, it led to a Sears, which is now host to that furniture store that looks like it was used to film Backrooms (2026). 
• It will never reach its full potential without a SkyTrain or some sort of form of rapid transit. Doug McCallum-related shenanigans meant that a planned streetcar never happened, which would have at least connected Guildford to Surrey Central station, and so it seems set to be a parking lot-centred space for years to come. Oh no is Willowbrook going to beat us to this?!?

But once in a while, I catch a glimpse of those old glass pyramids with deep nostalgia and I realize you can never truly run away from where you come from. The mall comes for thee. You find yourself waking up on your one day off and wonder how the hell you’re supposed to find a new pair of shoes, get a passport photo and a quick serviceable 2-item-plus-rice lunch, find a phone charger replacement, have a pee, pick up a new toaster, buy a toy for your niece, and, what the hell is a Lee’s Donuts doing here…anyways, and manage to do all of that in an hour? I don’t always have the time to wander cool Main Street boutiques and need to get some goddamn shopping done, so I submit to the mall. 

And what a mall it is. Here are some things I like about it. 

• Guildford doesn’t have all the nicest stuff, but it covers all the bases a mall is supposed to. Large tenants like London Drugs, Sport Chek and Lululemon get balanced out by a surprising amount of odd one-offs that you won’t find even in Metrotown, like hippie rocks and gems stores (which aren’t my thing as you can tell by how jaded my writing is, but perhaps I need to pop in for some Amethyst(?!?)) which this tells you the rents accommodate options for everyone. 
• The food court and centre atrium are stocked well with a high ratio of uncles of various ethnicities playing cards together, a positive sign of socio-economic health.
• Again, I go back to those pyramids, which are depicted in a 1985 commercial back when they were brown. In 1989, renowned Chinese-American architect I.M. Pei designed the Louvre’s iconic centerpiece of a glass pyramid. As a lawyer, I am loath to make declarative statements without proof, but great artists are known to steal, and it wouldn’t not stand to reason that Mr. Pei could have once caught sight of Guildford’s pyramids and carried on the tradition.  
• On the odd overpass that links the heart of the mall with the Urban Behaviour and furniture store rests “Untag”, a store that still has the spirit of the Guildford Mall I grew up with, by selling bedazzled jeans next to howling wolf moon Asian fuzzy blankets and shirts that say things like “hustle gang” or “come back with a warrant”, along with some questionably sourced Indigenous shirts. I once even got former and probably future guest Christopher Cheung to pose with Olamide Olaniyan in front of this store as part of a one-time tour I gave to local journalists unfamiliar with our beautiful suburb. 
• It has many of the same staples as Metrotown does while being more spacious. 
• Unlike Pacific Centre or Metrotown or Oakridge or even the “Amazing” Brentwood, Guildford has a Lego store. Check and mate. 
• Why it beats other malls: Brentwood is all flash and only really makes room for large tenants, not enough small ones, and it isn’t really feasible on a rainy day. It’s not workmanlike, ya know? Metrotown is overwhelmingly busy. You can’t pop into Metrotown for an errand. You just accept defeat and crawl out promising never to do that to yourself again, even though you probably got some good stuff.  Pacific Centre is not a real mall get out of my face. Unless you have seriously deep pockets for the Harry Rosen or Holt Renfrew, it’s just an Apple Store and a Sephora. 

This is the best mall south of the Fraser, and a modern mall worthy of a modern Surrey.

TOTAL SCORE

Small Stores: 9/10 (The massive amount of stores helps, but so too does the breadth, from the buzzy to the more service-based, the international chains to local curiosities, and a surprisingly high amount of stuff for kids. It loses a couple points for a lack of experiential or experimental stores, but that’s being very nitpicky.)

Anchor Tenants: 8.2/10 (Even if you put the Apple Store and Uniqlo in the small store section, you have a Walmart, Aritzia, London Drugs, Old Navy, Sport Chek, and adjacent movie theatre. We only give partial credit to things not directly connected to the “main” mall so the movie theatre doesn’t get full points, and a lack of a grocery store is a minus, but this is a solid showing.)

Food Court: 6.2/10 (Any mid-sized food court dominated by places like A&W, KFC and Subway in 2026 can’t be considered “great”, but there’s a decent breadth of somewhat mediocre places, the aforementioned great Filipino place, and ample seating. That it’s the weakest part of the mall is a testament to Guildford’s overall quality.)

Design/Accessibility: 6.8/10 (The semi-underground parking lot can be a bit of a tire fire, the lack of rapid transit is a strike, the atrium isn’t as good as it could be because of its bulky columns, and the attempt to make the overpass an interesting thing only half works, but overall it’s a straightforward well-lit design with good maps and a few nice visual flourishes.)

X-Factor: 7.5/10 (It’s a hard-working mall that does a lot of stuff pretty well and has no real dead zones — and while that might sound like faint praise, that’s incredibly rare to find these days. A time capsule to the bustling malls of the 90s, so long as you don’t mind the commute.)

OVERALL: 36.7/50 (After months of Aberdeen being on top, we’ve got a new best mall in Metro Vancouver, and its name is Guildford Town Centre. It is not flashy, it is not on a rapid transit line, and it doesn’t have any innovations in design or mall culture, but it is a very solid B+ mall with tons to do, no major weaknesses, and fills a clear need in Surrey for an indoor third space. It may not win best mall at the end of this project — but for now, it’s a worthy target for the rest of the malls in this series to try and beat.)

Finally, Vyas would like to Remember Some Guys:

• Ricky’s across from the London Drugs is now a Scotiabank. We once ate with extended family members we were hosting, and my mom called in ahead of us even being at the restaurant to leave her credit card info so she could out-aunty everyone else and pay first. I think that’s cheating. 
• The Bay. It hasn’t been occupied since it closed in 2025, so there is a massive hole in the mall, but for now the barricade has a sign saying that Surrey is a place where “the scenic route is all around and anything is possible. from HIKES to happy hours and shopping to LIVE SPORTS”. What the hell are you talking about. 
• The old location of the food court. I once used my morning spare block in grade 12 to come to the KFC before it even opened because they were debuting the Double Down and I had a salt coma afterwards.