Mustafa Centre

Mustafa Centre is a large department store at 145 Syed Alwi Road in Little India, about 350 metres from Farrer Park MRT station, known for selling everything from groceries to jewellery and electronics. Its story starts with Haji Mohamed Mustafa, who came to Singapore from Uttar Pradesh in India in 1952. In 1971 his son Mustaq Ahmad moved the family into retail with a ready-made garments shop on Campbell Lane, which moved to a larger shop on Serangoon Road by 1973. Mustaq Ahmad later bought a row of shophouses and turned them into a department store, which had become Mustafa Centre by 1995. In 2003 it became the first local department store to open 24 hours a day.

The store sprawls across a main building and an extension across Verdun Road, with a supermarket, a jewellery hall, a pharmacy, electronics, watches, clothing, books and toys, plus foreign exchange and travel services. A 2003 Straits Times report quoted by the National Heritage Board summed up its range as everything from brinjals to diamonds. After shortening its hours during the COVID-19 pandemic, Mustafa Centre resumed round-the-clock trading on 6 September 2024, according to news reports.