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FMS Hotel & Bar, Ipoh's Oldest Bar Restaurant
This photograph shows the second building occupied by the oldest restaurant and bar in Ipoh, and probably in Malaysia, the FMS Bar and Hotel. The first building, was at the corner of Market Street and Courthouse Road, Ipoh. It was founded by a Hainanese immigrant in 1906 and has occupied these premises (above) at 2 Brewster Road since 1923. The premises upstairs were also a hotel at one time.
The FMS bar and restaurant has been run by the same family for three generations, a firm favourite with Europeans planters and miners. It had the swing doors of a Western movie, an L-shaped bar with a big fridge behind it, a Victorian pendulum clock on the wall, and an abacus rattling at the end of the bar. It also had three curtained cubicles at the far end of the room for those who wished to have dinner. It was said to be crowded every night during the 1950's.
FMS of course stood for Federated Malay States.
To read more about the First FMS Hotel and Bar, click here.
To see a colour photograph of the second FMS Hotel and Bar around 1958, click here.
To read more about the book ‘Kinta Valley’, click here.