CF Chinook Centre

Came up to Calgary to do some shopping with a favorable exchange rate. Headed to the Chinook Centre to fill up the truck with goodies. Nice upscale mall with all the things you would expect to find.
We roamed, we got lost, we got found, and we made purchases all the while. Stores open at 11 Sunday. Crowds are well established by 1. Will be headed back on the next trip up.

I find market mall Sephora better. The staff at this location tend to stand around and talk rather than help customers.

Love the stores at Chinook Mall, it has everything I’m looking for. Great taste in the different kinds of stores and won’t get bored anytime soon.

Very big mall in Calgary. Lots of stores, choice is wide from high, expensive stores to cheap ones. Everyone should be able to find something suitable for him. There is also quite big food court.
When you are in Calgary and want to do some shopping this place is worth visiting.

My fiancé and I stopped at this mall for a brief visit on our way home from Vancouver back to Edmonton. This mall is pretty decent. Parking can be a pain in the butt but we were able to find parking on a Saturday mid-​morning after circling just a couple times.
Inside, you’ll find your staple stores, plus some exclusive stores such as Nordstrom’s and the Cineplex movie theatre. The mall is kept quite clean, tons families, couples, friends walking around.
This is definitely one of the nicer malls in town, if not the nicest. If you’re stopping in Calgary for a visit and want to check out a mall that should most people’s needs, then I’d recommend this one over any other.

The underground heated parking at Chinook Centre is a god-​send in the winter. That is when I go there most often, for a reprieve from the cold weather. I do my best to avoid busier times and the Christmas shopping season, it is too busy and stressful. It is a very large mall with lots of regular mall stuff, plus some offerings that are less common place. There is a large movie Theatre, a bowling alley and a several department stores. There are numerous restaurants. The food court is as ordinary as can be in regards to selection. They have a merry-​go-​round in the food court — great for entertaining young kids. It is often crowded and the layout of the mall is a bit strange, it just kept getting added onto over the years, growing increasingly larger.
Some places of Interest at Chinook Centre.
*** Phil and Sebastian Coffee
*** Sephora
*** Georges Cookies
*** Nine West
*** Rocky Mountain Soap Company
*** Mac Make-​up
*** Globefish Sushi
*** Hat Store

Chinook, Chinook, Chinook why you gotta be such a weekend gong show?! My gosh, from the moment you drive up (yah, drive up, not even parked) you can feel the eminent chaos that will ensue.
Once you find parking, (allot about 10 – 15 mins to find a spot or you can pay $ 11 for the valet service) you enter the largest mall in Calgary. I enjoy the selection of stores and restaurants. There are tons of cool stores like Nordstroms, Apple, Sephora and many, many, many others. So if you’re looking for something in particular you’re almost guaranteed to find it at Chinook.
But if you don’t like the excessive crowds, the endless lines and the bustle of being contained in a building with 5,000 people do not go to Chinook, well on the weekends. During the weekdays, Chinook is probably one of my happy places in Calgary.

Chinook is a unique mall in that it offers medium to high end stores. I love that you can shop for almost anything here. The only downside is that it is not accommodating to young children. You cannot rent buggies and there is no free indoor playground. Underground parking is convenient and great. There are stalls for families with young kids so I guess that’s a plus there. I just really love that there is Nordstrom there now! I tend to stay on the north end of the mall where all the specialty retail shops are like Tory Burch, Tiffany, Coach, Burberry, Stuart Weitzman, BCBG, Kiehl’s, Seven for All Mankind, and Le Crueset. It’s a huge mall so bring your walking shoes!

Great mall with lots of selection. During the Christmas season it can get a little crazy trying to maneuver through the sheer volume of people but that’s true of most malls at that time of year.
Parking is never really an issue and the Ctrain has a stop just 2 blocks away.

Love, love. love Chinook Centre. Favorite mall in Calgary. Especially since they have gone through so many renovations over the years and have acquired allot of great stores.
1. Parking and there is lots of it. I prefer to park by Nordstrom’s underground and each time have had no problem finding any. It’s always busy but I always find a spot to park my massive SUV.
2. High end stores & stores that you don’t see at every mall. Anthropologie, Tory Burch, Burberry, etc. etc. A bit for everyone. From high end to the basic’s like Gap, H&M and all that good stuff.
3. Fantastic food court with lots of variety. Everything from A&W, Choices, Thai, Chinese food as well as plenty of seating.
All in all, I will be back many times.

This place is awesome!
For us, this alone was worth the drive from Edmonton. It has far more «outlet» type shops than Crossiron Mills, and an upscale vibe.
Definitely the place to shop if you’re in Cowtown for a visit!

If you asked me what a good shopping mall should have I’d say: convenient location, ample parking, a wide variety of stores, good hours, walkability, entertainment venues, a solid food court, restaurants and of course washrooms in the right places. Does Chinook Centre have all this? Short answer: yes and then some! Full breakdown below:
1) Convenient location? Yup! Right on Macleod and Glenmore with the Chinook LRT located just a short walk away. Small secret, Route 506 is a free shuttle bus service to/​from Chinook LRT/​Chinook Centre for those who have trouble walking or just need a break. There are also dedicated Mayfair Taxi spots and Car2Go spots, so there are no shortage of options to get to/​from Chinook Centre. Score: ⁵⁄₅
2) Ample Parking? Yes and No, there are over 5,500 spots (most underground) making it Calgary’s largest heated parkade. So yes there is ample parking, but the «no» for parking is because you have to know where to look. The front surface lot (East) and most immediate underground areas are typically poor choices. I recommend checking the rear (West) surface lots and underground, but avoid the Nordstrom area (used to be the spot when it was Sears, but busy since Nordstrom came in). Surface covered parkade can be hit and miss out back. Also the area by Shell and Nordstrom out front is usually a safe bet due to its awkward placement lol ;). They even do valet parking at this mall on weekends… lol. Not free like The Core though! You will have to pay. Score: ⁴⁄₅
3) Store Variety? ABSOLUTELY! A little bit of everything, something for everyone and a range of price ranges from affordable to very high end. With over 250 stores there’s really too many to list, check out the list online! Score: ⁵⁄₅
4) Hours? 9:30am-9:00pm Mon-​Sat, Sun/​Holidays 11:00am-7:00pm, more than adequate! There are some exceptions on some anchors like Chapters, Shoppers and the Movie Theatre of course (check online). Score: ⁵⁄₅
5) Walkability? Yup! The layout of this mall is pretty simple to navigate once you’re familiar with it. You can even do it pretty strategically to cover both levels with minimal/​no overlap if you know what path to take. Escalators and elevators are in the right places. It does get fairly crowded, but the walk ways are wide enough so you can get past the slow pokes. They even categorize the floor plan a bit, for example most cell phone stores are in the same area and most high end stores are in the same area. Score: 4.5÷5
6) Entertainment? The best theatre in Calgary (see my separate review for why I think it’s the best). There’s a bowling alley as well at this mall! No other major activities though. Score ⁴⁄₅
7) Food Court? Great balance, a little bit of everything from greasy to healthy, from super cheap to a bit more expensive. Sweet to Savoury… you get the point. Score ⁵⁄₅
8) Restaurants? MMhmmm: JOEY Chinook, State & Main, Bazille, Double Zero Pizza, Boston Pizza, Globefish Japanese Bistro and Chop. Great options, just docking a point for variety, Score ⁴⁄₅
9) Washrooms? These are so-​so, they have them located throughout the mall but they’re kind of in these odd spots away from everything and you find yourself rushing to them rather than conveniently using them. Score ³⁄₅
Simply put: Chinook has something for everyone! Given my breakdown above you may be wondering why I gave it a ⁵⁄₅ overall instead of a 3 or 4. This mall is a ⁵⁄₅ because it’s the best Calgary has to offer despite a couple short comings, if all the malls in Calgary were the exact same distance apart I would always choose Chinook Centre because it offers more overall. Market Mall, South Centre, The Core? No contest… Some might argue CrossIron Mills and it would be close because they have some strong anchors. But Chinook would still edge it out because CrossIron doesn’t have the quality of theatre Chinook does nor does it have the restaurant options. So if you only get to visit 1 mall on your next major shopping day, choose Chinook Centre :).

Probably the most popular mall in Calgary. With a few exclusive stores like Nordstroms and the Lego Store, close proximity to the ctrain station and a fairly large food court, along with a variety of shopping destinations, you could see yourself spending both time and money here. Depending on your shopping needs this is the mall to go (or avoid) during Christmas time. There’s a little bit for everyone. There’s even a merry-​go-​round in the food court for the kids ($ 4, $ 8 with picture).

Great mall. Nordstrom is a great addition. Really enjoyed our recent trip there. Good food court. Excellent atmosphere and great attitude of salespeople in stores. A must go, if u like high end stuff and have money to spend. Recommended.

If you know me, you know I’ve been in the retail world for my entire career. And I still love it.
I had only been to Chinook Centre once before on a mall tour so I was excited when the Hubba Hubby suggested we hit up the mall to check out Nordstrom when we were in Calgary last weekend. And what a great experience from start for finish!
There’s tons of parking and it’s all well signed. We ended up in one of their many parkades and it was easy to find parking and then find our way into the mall. The mall itself was also really easy to find, at the corner of two main intersections that was well signed.
The two level mall has a ton of great stores — I wasn’t specifically looking for anything so I couldn’t tell you if they’re missing anything obvious — but we loved the selection and the layout. Props to the mall for having a lot of way finding available — both with the handheld mall directory and maps, as well as the electronic versions.
The food court is expansive, both in selection as well as seats. The place was packed for a Saturday afternoon but we were able to find great seats next to a fireplace to enjoy some Thai Express. Really, anything that you were in the mood for can be accommodated in this food court!
Chinook Centre was clean, which was fantastic to see especially with so many people in the mall that day. And we just got good vibes from it — bright, airy, vibrant, comfortable.

Canadian malls are so cool. The only problem with Chinook mall is now that I’m back in the US it makes the malls near me seem really lame. We don’t have giant polar bear statues :(.

Best mall
In Calgary! Lots of exclusive stores plus merry go round. Large food court and movie theatres. Bowling alley is 5 pin only.
No five star as portions of mall corridor are way to narrow from the 1980’s

The crappiest parking in the world.
How much did chinook spend on their red/​green parking stall light setup, to have an error rate of 80−90% wrong at the start, to utter failure in 3 years?
The crazy tight windy underground parking absolutely sucks. They had people directing for pedestrians, but they needed people for directing stalls.
They have decent shops, but it’s too big for it’s own britches in terms of parking.

As my flight to ORD was delayed, I took this as an opportunity to check out the Chinook Centre. What’s the saying? When in Rome…
Anyway, first thing’s first — this mall is ginormous. I was afraid that parking would be a nightmare, but it seemed to flow pretty well and I even scored a spot next to one of the elevators. Win. [However, I had to make sure I snapped a picture of the exact spot I was in as I was convinced that I would get lost and never be able to locate the rental car again.]
Store-​wise, nothing really seemed to stand out to me. The selection of stores seemed pretty standard and a good mix of both high end and more affordable. I think they have random attractions throughout the mall, like model airplanes or something? The one thing that stood out as different than the US was HUGE food court. Like, what. Tons of Asian food, too — not just Panda express style stuff. Yups. *sigh*
After quickly walking through one more side of the mall, I decided it was time to leave as I didn’t want to risk missing my flight. And, for those of you that care, I actually navigated my way back to the rental with no problems. Yay to the Tory Burch store reference point.

I’ve been coming to Chinook centre for 10 years but it has been quite some time since my last visit! I was really pleasantly surprised!
Abercrombie
Hollister
7 for all mankind
Kiels
Target
Williams Sonoma
Pottery Barn
This place has really been done up nicely! I’m amazed at all the high end shops here now!
I walked by the food court and they really did a nice job of it!
This has to be on par with the Eaton’s Centre in downtown Toronto, Carrefour Laval in Laval, QC and Vaughan Mills!
The underground parking would be sweet as well in winter!
Malls have sure come a long way in the last 20 years! It’s more about the experience and everything has gone more upscale!