Mall Profile #2: Admiralty, by Justin McElroy
Aberdeen Mall
Location: Richmond
Opened: 1996
Approximate number of stores: 50
Anchor tenants: Maple Castella Bakery? The food court itself?
(To listen to our podcast on Admiralty, click here)
Admiralty! The mall with a Wix.com website that hasn't been updated in 12 years!
Admiralty! The mall with six travel agencies, endless empty shops, and a prominently displayed copy of the Jennifer Garner classic 13 Going on 30 in the DVD store.
Admiralty! A place whose food court is one of the few times where the title "hidden gem" actually applies because it's been around forever, mostly escapes the public consciousness, but is actually good.
Admiralty!
Some malls in Metro Vancouver are big and good, some are big and emptyish, some are small but interesting, and some are just surviving under the radar, a tribute to the dreams and ambitions of a different time in the retail landscape, seemingly waiting for inevitable change to upend things while still providing a valuable service for those that need it.
We'll get to the food court in a second, but Admiralty is mostly that.
The mall opened in 1996 in the aftermath of the boom of big Asian-oriented malls that transformed Richmond's northern commercial core at the start of the 1990s, and located just a few blocks to the east of it. Unlike Aberdeen or Parker Place or Yaohan or others, Admiralty never really caught on with the public: the only news articles about it were about empty stores, crime happening in the building, or weird drama happening between food court stalls.
In the midst of an area dominated by strip malls, it seems to have missed the mark both in terms of form (the other strip malls tend to be much busier) and time (there's only room for so many popular malls in a city of 200,000, and when there's a bunch that are bigger than you that opened up five years earlier close by, you've got a lot of competition).
And so the barber shop pole doesn't rotate. Well over a quarter of the small storefronts seem like they've been empty for years. Signs about the 2025 Lunar New Year are still up in January 2026. There are signs of life here and there (an artist studio and a model toy shop, among others), but for the most part this is the vibe of so many ghost malls in so many cities today, where it's hard to imagine why most people would come here, or what could be done to reverse a decades-long decline.
Until you get to the food court.
Most people tend to go straight here, heading through the high-ceiling atrium, ignoring those series of cramped loops with empty shops in each corner, and head straight for the second floor, where the food court lies, along with 90% or so of anyone in the mall at any given time.
It is reliably packed at lunch time, with a mix of old loyalists and younger foodies, the mostly Hong Kong and Shanghai-based stalls all packed, and is the clear selling point for the entire mall, with a variety of influencer videos and foodie blogs giving their endorsement.
The specific outlets have come and gone over the years, but we loved the freshly made soup dumplings at Shanghai Lao Wei Do (so does everyone else, judging by the lines), the Hainanese Chicken from Kam Ho is a standard, and the mango mochi from Rice Holic has gained a deserved buzz.
The common denominator to all the places is a fresh food, a respectable price, and the sense you're avoiding chain establishments, even more so than the malls in the rest of Richmond.
It's a reminder of what a food court can and should be for a mall: a beating heart, a gathering spot, a place for discovery, and above all, a tasty meal. It's easy to take the good ones for granted, yet an excellent food court in an otherwise disposable mall is a reminder of how much they can bring to the table.
So go to the food court. See if Admiralty makes your roster of Richmond excursions. Enjoy the mall's particular blend of empty weirdness, while keeping your overall expectations firmly in check.
The food court may qualify as a hidden gem, but the mall is hidden for good reason.
Justin McElroy is a Vancouver journalist who also ranks things and creates websites based on those rankings, including this one, and is the co-host of Food Court in Session.
TOTAL SCORE
Small Stores: 3.4/10 (Half the stores are either travel agencies or completely empty, but there are a few good finds, including a couple of art studios, a model toy shop, and a DVD store...but that's not enough to save things)
Anchor Tenants: 2/10 (A victim of the mall's small cubed design perhaps, there isn't really a big outlet inside the mall that really draws people in...except for the food court, and though that's ranked separately, it's worth a couple of points)
Food Court: 8.2/10 (Pound for pound you could make an argument of it being the best food court in the city, with no real weak spots and all 10 or so places being very tasty and hard to find equivalents elsewhere. Worth the hype, and only loses points for its smallish size and relative lack of diversity)
Design/Accessibility 4.1/10 (The rooftop parking lot directly linking to the food court is interesting, but otherwise it's a dimly-lit cramped series of right turns that has seen better days)
X-Factor: 4.6/10 (A fascinating mix of things to consider, and it's always fun when a place has a vintage DVD shop, but it is less a good vibe than a slightly interesting if someone depressing one)
OVERALL: 21.8/50. As a mall, it has never taken off with the general public and now faces the same problems as most 21st century malls without distinct retail outlets that are becoming more and more more ghost-like. A good food court doesn't change that, but it still gives a reason to visit.
