Brookside Shopping Centre

The Brookside Shopping Centre is good for a grocery shop, a quick bite to eat and a brief look around. It has a modern Coles, and a Woolworths that is currently under renovation. There is also a Myer and a Big W, as well as other practical stores such as Australia Post and a Commonwealth Bank.
The shopping centre has a few different places to eat, including a small food court, though this is a pretty quiet and depressing place to eat at.
Free parking is available, and a bus depot is out the front. The shopping centre offers gift cards, though I don’t know who in their right mind would want to purchase one of these as a gift.
If you are looking to make a day out of shopping, then you are definitely better off travelling a bit further to Westfield Chermside or the Indooroopilly Shopping centre.

Join their newsletter to get discounts, find out about upcoming events and specials. Great undercover parking and within walking distance of the train line.

Good mix of shops and not too large for getting around — but apart from new Coles (which is excellent) it’s pretty old, could use a major refresh, and is not guaranteed to have much range or stock.

Brookside, oh Brookside. You look the same as when I first came her almost (cough) 20 years ago (cough). I’m not kidding… it looks exactly the same. While some of the shops have changed and the addition of a few ‘upgrades’ escalators this centre, while being clean, neat and tidy is looking very very worn and in DESPERATE need of an upgrade and refurbishment. The food court while home to subway and Wendy’s sees an almost continual rotation of different take aways as the shops will shut down over a 12 month period and be replaced with another chicken/​kebab/​curry/​generic take away. The Myer’s is not a full range Myer and is only 3 small levels. The underground parking is fantastic however when you look at just how much ground including parking the centre occupies with a proper refurbishment this could be a fantastic shopping centre for a side of town that has to travel to either Chermside, Strathpine or the City to do some ‘serious’ shopping. There is a full range Woolworths and Coles have just opened a new store in the centre. For shopping centre’s it’s a pit stop. Drive the extra 10 or 15 minutes to Chermside for proper shopping.

Brookside isn’t really my closest or most convenient shopping centre but it offers an interesting mix of shops and that is what draws me to it on a weekly basis.
There is convenient parking (inc. undercover), Woolworths, Myer, multiple cafés, clothing stores, EB Games, Chemist, Big W, Nail Salons, Bottle Shops, Bakeries, Shoe Stores, Barber & Hairdressers, Jewellers, Doctors, Banks and everything in between.
You can literally come and run your errands and have a wonder around too. If you’re someone like me who has a lot of time on their hands, that sort of thing is important to you.
Brookside is a real gem!

I often go to Brookside for haircuts at Aldo’s (who do perfectly good haircuts at a good price) and to just have a browse around some of the shops. Although it may not have the variety of shops Chermside Shopping Centre has, being it a much smaller shopping centre, it still has its benefits over Chermside, such as the parking. Normally I park in the basement car park and it is quite easy to get a park near the entrance. On the other hand, I have spent up to about half an hour trying to find a parking spot in Chermside’s basement car park under the newer part. Also, because it’s a much smaller shopping centre, it is easier to get from one end of the centre to the other, whereas in Chermside, for example, you will need to in fact walk a kilometre to get from Coles to Woolworths or vice versa. I have nothing against Chermside, mind you, I still go there often.
I also recently watched videos on the internet commemorating Brookside’s 40^th anniversary, and I could tell that the management of the centre have done an awful lot for the community over those past 40 years. The videos consisted of several spokespeople for Brookside, some of whom had pointed out the fact that it is moreso a ‘family centre’ as it has a family-​friendly kind of atmosphere and has often held children’s activities and events.
Another well-​known fact about Brookside is the fact that a lot of the specialty stores, such as most of those in the Centre Court, have been trading in the same spot for many, many years. They were there when I was a young child in the 90’s and they’re still there today. Compared to a lot of other shopping centres in the area, such as Stafford City, so much there is still the same as it was when I was a child. I guess there could be various reasons why the centre hasn’t undergone any renovations since then. For example, I know that there are a lot of people who have lived in the area for many years and have fond memories of the place and would prefer it to stay as it is. The centre did however undergo internal and external paint jobs a few years ago, so they’ve managed to preserve it. By all means, it’s not aging or anything, it still looks all right.
The centre’s anchor tenant is a large three-​level Myer, which is quite advanced for a shopping centre of its size considering larger shopping centres such as Westfield North Lakes have Myer stores that are only two levels. Other stores currently include Target, Woolworths and IGA, however, the Target and IGA stores will imminently be replaced by Big W and Coles. I’m quite disappointed about this as it was the only Target store in the north-​west suburbs and considering there’s already a Big W store in Stafford, I feel that there is no need for one at Brookside.

Growing up this complex offered the closest supermarket to my family, so as a child I was dragged along here quite a lot. Funny how years later you can still experience nervous anxiety about going back to a place you remember from childhood. After all, your greatest fear (what if I run into someone I know from high school?) is no longer there. I don’t think I’d recognize anyone I went to high school with here or anywhere else anymore; even if I did, it doesn’t carry the same threat anyway (Oh, no, they’ve seen me with my Mum/​Why the hell did I have to wear this awful outfit today/​Did they see me come out of Bras ‘N’ Things etc). But I digest.*
It’s strange that Brookside Shopping Centre still exists in basically the same format. There are a few upgrades, but many of the stores are still in the same place. (Such as Kleins. I had a terrible, short-​lived job working at Brookside Kleins as a teenager. The no. 1 instruction from my naggy, paranoid manager: be more pushy. Urgh. Sorry. Back to the point.) You’d think over the years that Brookside would have collapsed under the power of a nearby supercentre or become one itself. Neither has happened and it still just exists as is; in terms of comparison, the entire centre is probably smaller than any of the given floors at Indooroopilly Shopping Centre.
During the week the centre is quiet, unless there’s a local election on, apparently. Brookside has been on my way from A to B more often lately, and one recent visit saw me almost knock out one of those guys in suits holding flyers beside a stand with posters about promise/​change (Tim Mander — sorry, mate). The upside to Brookside is you can get decent clothing from stores such as Myer, Portmans or Cotton On for a cheaper price than in the city or a larger shopping centre. And the quality and range of clothing from these stores is quite good, especially regarding the former two.
The centre has upped its café offering since its beginnings, with a Coffee Club at one end of the centre and a small but quaint-​looking café/​restaurant at the other. The food court with all its greasy terrible food still takes prominence in the centre of the complex, but there’s a Subway option there now as well.
Importantly, the Wendy’s is still there, and so are the choc-​dip cones.
*Yes, I meant that.

I desperately needed a copy of Skyrim, and my husband desperately needed a new set of glasses so we came to Brookside because it’s close, and it has an EB Games and a Specsavers.
Those stores did what we needed them to, the parking was easy, I liked the compact nature of the shopping centre — but good lord was it tired! Hasn’t slept in 10 years kinda tired. I’ve seen shopping centres in country towns with heaps more pizzaz.
I hope they get a renovate soon as there are some good tenants there who are no doubt suffering as their customers are drawn to the bright lights and sparkly surfaces of other, fresher shopping centres.

If there were any shopping centre in need of a desperate makeover, it would be Brookside. The inside is still quite nice, with carpetted flooring and a Myer, even a supa IGA, but you can tell that over the years, whilst awesome in its heyday… it is time.
There is a really daggy foodcourt, with only a few shops, the shops range from your Target, Loot, Myer and Donut King to antique gifts and miscellaneous stuff by Anthea. Whatever the case, this northside icon, needs a facelift.
A little bit daggy, a little bit worn. But it’s still got that certain je nais c’est quois of the Northside.