Those who don’t feel like they’ve handed enough over to Thailand’s largest family-owned retail conglomerate have a new place to do so at a shophouse in Bangkok’s old town, where its empire began exactly seven decades ago.
Central: The Original Store, a five-story shophouse at No. 1266 on Charoen Krung Road, was the first property owned 70 years ago by what later became Central Group has been renovated and opened to the public to pay homage to Central’s origins and its founding father, Tiang Chirathivat.
Each floor serves a different function. The first has the Siwilai Cafe and so-called music bar Siwilai Sound Club, while the second floor operates as a “retail library” (though we’re not sure what that means, the original building sold English-language books). The third and fourth floors are for events and exhibitions, while the top story sees a…
