Ah yes, Campsie Centre — the beating retail heart of Campsie, where errands, people-watching and mild chaos all collide beautifully. Sitting just off Beamish Street, this long-serving shopping centre has been faithfully providing the locals with groceries, bargains and last-minute necessities for decades. Anchored by Big W and the ever-reliable Tong Li Supermarket (where you go in for one thing and leave with seven bags, much of items you really can't identify but look good), it’s rounded out by a rotating cast of small shops, food outlets and services that cover everything from bubble tea emergencies to urgent phone-screen repairs.
Campsie Centre is less about glossy mall glamour and more about real-world survival shopping. It’s practical, it’s busy, and it absolutely does not care about your personal space during peak hour. Recent upgrades have attempted to brighten things up a bit — new paint, better lighting, and the occasional hint that someone in management has seen a Westfield before. Still, its true charm lies in being unapologetically local: a place where you can shop, eat, run into three people you know (and two you hope don’t recognise you), and leave feeling like you’ve truly experienced Campsie.
If I recall correctly, it had a Food For Less supermarket at one stage which was to replace the Flemings across the other side of Beamish Street. The Flemings did hold on a while longer, but both are now gone.
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Behold the “main” entrance to the Campsie Centre—one of many, because committing to a single entrance would be far too simple. This one fronts Amy Street and is doing its best.
Photo: Brad Peadon
Just inside said entrance.
Photo: Brad Peadon
Naturally, the terrifyingly cheerful Festive Season was fast approaching, so Christmas trees were popping up everywhere, spreading seasonal joy and mild emotional exhaustion in equal measure.
Photo: Brad Peadon
Th food court always seem strangely devoid of choices and people.
Photo: Brad Peadon
More Christmas trees than those less than legal tobacco shops.
Photo: Brad Peadon
The top level, where—subject to correction—I believe the old Food For Less once lived. It was supposed to be a modernised Flemings, with the plan (when I worked for the latter) being a shiny rebrand or quiet closure. Amusingly, after all that effort, the Flemings name outlasted it anyway.
We won. Take that FFL.
Photo: Brad Peadon
Unsure of the date of the above, but the only Flemings I worked in that remained is Coogee. It later became a Food For Less.
Newtown store was the register training school.
Sourced: Trove
The top floor never seems to be a fraction as busy as the others. In fact, for some time I didn't even know there was a Big W there.
Photo: Brad Peadon
Escalators up from the bottom floor towards th much quieter top one.
Photo: Brad Peadon
Christmas competition anyone?
Photo: Brad Peadon
Cheap meat, the only reason we regularly drive out to Campsie.
Oh, and a few great Asian restaurants as well.
Photo: Brad Peadon
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Nhing & Virls
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