John Garlick started his first store on May 3, 1875, on the corner Bree and Strand Streets, in the central business district of Cape Town.
In the 1880s, Garlick expanded with branches in the Transvaal, in Johannesburg and Pretoria, and in Kimberley in the northern Cape Province.
It had lifts (elevators), electric lights throughout, and automatic fire sprinklers.
A few years later, Garlicks built South Africa's first steel-framed skyscraper, one of nine stories and the tallest building in Cape Colony at the time, and which had the first escalators in what is now South Africa.
[4] The last Garlicks department store closed in Cape Town in late February 1993.