11/07/2026
Gillman Barracks, Where It All Started.
This building used to be called ‘Paccan Center’. This location is near to Depot Road/Telok Blangah and is in the Alexandra area. It is beside St Andrew’s Junior College, ITE Pasir Panjang and Gardenia’s factory at Malan Road. It’s opposite BP Tower & HP Alexandra Technopark. It’s also near to Labrador Park and so many cool places.
My late father opened his first Canadian 2 for 1 Pizza franchised outlet in the food court exactly in here in December 1995. He later leased a couple more units at the food court to sell other food. Then he relocated his shipping company’s office to the 3rd floor of this building. After which he bid the tender and became the landlord of the entire building. There’s at least 20 food outlets and every tenant paid the rent to him and so on. He was so nice to every one. Lastly, he also opened a huge snooker/billiard room on the 3rd floor as well.
I started working at this pizza place of his when I was about to start my Primary 6 education. Worked here for a good 6 years or so before my Dad relocated this Canadian Pizza outlet to Pasir Panjang Village which became even more successful back then hitting 6 figure revenue almost every month. This was literally my entire childhood through adulthood. We stayed at Marine Parade and for me to commute by bus all the way here took me a minimum of 90 minutes.
I told my closest friends back then there used to be an almost real life size T-Rex and no one would believed me until years back when it came out on social media. Lol.
There were thousands of things that I could share about my time here but most importantly, this was where I spent most of my teenage years. From the time I was about to turn 12 till I was about 18. When my peers were busy playing console games, arcades, soccer and what-nots, I was working and busting my ass like an adult. My late father made me worked just like any other staff, in fact I was treated even worse than the other staffs! Lol. His expectation and tough love was on another level altogether. I was already working 13 hours a day 30 days straight at only $2.50 hourly rate during the June School holidays, just so I could buy my first electric guitar.
This place reminded me how I turned from a boy to a man way faster than most of the people of my age.
- Fadil
Article here: bit.ly/4gvyqsy