East Africa’s largest Mall ‘Garden City’ opened its doors to the public yesterday, and looking at the number of people who went shopping on day one, Kenyan’s are either unemployed, self-employed or on collective leave. You could not believe it was on a Thursday.

Very few stores have opened, but the main tenants, Nakumatt, Game, Text book Centre and Victoria Courts were ready.

The likes of KFC and Mr Price will be opening soon.

If you’re used to the box-style TRM, you’ll find Garden City a little mixed up and it can be confusing. It’s massive and once everyone has opened shop, it will take you a few hours to ‘sample’ everything.

I must admit I was quite underwhelmed by Game Store. Compared to Nakumatt, the South Africans have no elegance whatsoever. Their shelves are so high and congested, and though they have more space than Nakumatt, there’s more fresh air in the latter. In my opinion, neither Nakumatt Garden City nor Game comes close to beating Nakumatt TRM in anything.

That however did not prevent thousands of shoppers from taking advantage of the opening day offers.

The number of people in both supermarkets diffused the theory that one would eat into the other’s business. Or perhaps things will change as days progress.

Check out some photos from inside the mall.





The sitting areas are ready, but the eateries have not opened

The parking was full

Cinema coming soon



Congested Game Store

Inside Nakumatt (Photos taken before opening day congestion)

The traffic outside the mall. Expect worse over the weekend