Aphrodite and the Mixed Grill:
Gender and Ethnic Relations
in Ipswich’s Greek Cafés
from 1900 to 2005
Marina Londy visiting the nearby Regal Café staff after school in the early 1950s Toni Risson
2005 Recipient of the
Ipswich Local History Sesqui-Centenary Scholarship
The Ipswich City Council and The University of Queensland Ipswich
Campus
Report 4 Table of Contents
Introduction 4‐2 Methodology and Historiography 4‐4 Chapter One: Greek Migration and the Café Phenomenon 4‐9 Greek Cafes in Ipswich 4‐16 City Café (Australian Café) 4‐17 Metro Café 4‐20 Londy’s Café 4‐21 The Ritz Café 4‐24 The Regal Café 4‐27 The Sydney Café 4‐35 Penglis’ Fruit Shop 4‐38 Chapter Two: Style and Menu 4‐41 Chapter Three: Women and the Greek Café 4‐49 Chapter Four: Greek and Anglo‐Australian Relations 4‐67 Chapter Five: The Greeks and Gathering Places 4‐77 Chapter Six: Reasons for the Demise of the Greek Café 4‐81 Chapter Seven: The Rise of a Contemporary Café Culture 4‐87 Conclusion 4‐91 Works Cited 4‐93 List of Interviewees 4‐96 Aphrodite and the Mixed Grill 4‐1 Introduction
February 2006 The emergence of a café society in the Ipswich CBD in recent years is marked by the lack of a similar culture in the preceding few decades. Prior to the 1970s, however, a plethora of milk bars and cafés thrived in those same streets and most were owned by Greek immigrants. From the beginning of the twentieth century, Greek cafés and milk bars forged an important place at the heart of the Ipswich community and when older Ipswich residents talk about them their eyes light up. Greek cafés supplied more than just huge plates of good, cheap food; bustling to the clatter of silver cutlery, the hiss of sizzling steaks, and the swoosh of soda fountains, cafés like Londy’s, the Ritz, and the Regal Café were public gathering places that helped to nurture a sense of community in a city built on railways and coalmines. This project investigates the role Greek cafés played in Ipswich’s cultural history, situating them in the context of Greek immigration and the Greek café phenomenon throughout Australia. In attempting to identify all of the Greek cafés in Ipswich’s history, it covers various decades from 1900 to the present and gathers oral histories from both Greek and Anglo‐Celtic Australians. The project focuses on women’s stories in order to understand the role of gender in people’s experience of Greek cafés. Because they flourished at the interface between an anglophile Australia and a new wave of ‘foreigners’, however, Greek cafés are also a valuable means of understanding the relationship between Greek and Anglo‐Celtic Australians. First, a discussion of the sources and methodologies employed as background research highlights the value and uniqueness of this project and the important role oral history plays in understanding our past. It also affords the opportunity to examine some of the challenges it presented. Finally, the project would not be complete without a discussion of the demise of the Greek café and the re‐
emergence of a café society in Ipswich. 4‐2
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Note: details contained in this scholarship report were correct at the time the report was finalised in 2005. Between the time of writing and the time the Scholarship reports were collated and printed in 2010 some details have changed including ages and circumstances of individuals. Aphrodite and the Mixed Grill 4‐3 Methodology and Historiography “I remember [. . .] my dad who left Greece when he was fifteen with his hope his ambitions and a bag full of dreams but spent the rest of his life as a slave to a stove till his dreams were all greasy and his hope had all gone.” – Komninos qtd in Collins et al. Historians refer to the gravitation of Greek immigrants toward the café business as a singular phenomenon (Gilchrist 1: 190; Conomos, History 117; Janiszewski and Alexakis 1). Historian Leonard Janiszewski and documentary photographer Effy Alexakis, for example, note the perception that “whenever one goes out west there is always ‘the dagoes’ to eat in,” and they cite Russell Drysdale’s painting of an outback Greek café owner’s wife (“ Maria” 1950) as a means of articulating the subject’s status as an icon of rural Australia (1). As Janiszewski and Alexakis point out, however, although the Greek café is “a quintessentially Australian phenomenon,” it is underrepresented in historical research (1).1 In the case of Ipswich’s Greek cafés, few academic sources exist. Even Janiszewski and Alexakis, who confirm and elaborate the abundance of Greek cafés in Australia and provide new insight into the Americanisation of Australian eating habits, are primarily concerned with New South Wales, where cafés like the Niagara in Gundagai and the Paragon in Katoomba are tourist Meccas (7).2 Furthermore, former solicitor and member of South‐East Queensland’s Greek community, Denis A. Conomos, in a comparatively thorough documentation of Greek cafés in Queensland, makes only passing references to Ipswich cafés (History 104, 104). Even local historian Robyn Buchanan’s recent account of Ipswich in the twentieth century, fails to mention the city’s abundance of Greek cafés and milk bars.3 1
Michael Symons allocates only two lines on page 137 to the Greek café in his treatise on Australia’s food history – One Continuous Picnic: A History of Eating in Australia. Adelaide: Duck Press, 1982. In a three volume history of Greeks in Australia, to which he devotes nearly 1,300 pages, Hugh Gilchrist similarly makes no mention of cafés in Ipswich. One chapter – “The Shop‐Keeping Phenomenon” (Australians and Greeks Volume 1: The Early Years. Rushcutters Bay, NSW: Halstead Press, 1992) – includes a section on Queensland (pages 232‐238), but without reference to Ipswich cafés. 2
Beyond the Rolling Wave, a project for the NSW Heritage Office by Craig Turnbull and Chris Valiotis, is a further example of the celebration of Greek cafés in NSW. 3
Buchanan, Robyn. Ipswich in the Twentieth Century: Celebrating 100 Years as a City 1904‐2004. Ipswich: Ipswich City Council, 2004. 4‐4
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Official sources are also limited. Fire Department Block Plans and City Council Land‐
Use Maps are excellent resources, but these are available for Ipswich only for 1918 and 1979 respectively. Building Applications, Electoral Rolls, and Post Office Directories offer useful snippets of information. These sources, however, do not provide a list of Greek cafés because ethnicity is not indicated and because Greek café owners anglicised their names; the picture is incomplete and often contradictory. Other factors concerning Greek names and business practices further limit the usefulness of both academic and official sources in tracing cafés, a task further compounded by the fact that commercial enterprises open, change hands, change name, and close down in short periods of time (Conomos, History 89). While official sources therefore indicate that the situation in Ipswich was consistent with claims that by the first decade of the twentieth century Greek cafés dotted rural New South Wales and Queensland (Janiszewski and Alexakis 1; Conomos, History 104‐117), they are inadequate for the task of identifying the extent to which Greek cafés claimed the Ipswich streetscape and understanding what they meant to the people who worked and ate in them. In the 1910s, Ipswich already had several Greek cafés. By the 1950s there were ten. Unfortunately, while Victorian and Federation buildings are now preserved, fewer art deco buildings survive; not only did the ‘golden age’ of Greek cafés pass, but the buildings they occupied in Ipswich were demolished. Except for the Central Milk Bar, Australia’s original café culture is all but erased from the Ipswich streetscape. It now exists primarily in photographs, artefacts, and, especially, memories. Oral history, then, in conjunction with academic and official sources, is the best means of constructing a history of Ipswich’s Greek café venues and proprietors. The real strength of oral history, however, is not its ability to track the growing number of cafés in Ipswich from the early twentieth century, but its potential to describe what it was like to be a Greek or to work for Greeks in twentieth century Ipswich. Because it offers access to the meanings of everyday practices and the stories of ordinary people, oral history is the only means by which Greek cafés may be understood as a cultural phenomenon. A project of this nature has not previously Aphrodite and the Mixed Grill 4‐5 been undertaken in Ipswich and, because the current generation of seventy to eighty‐year‐olds is the primary source of information about the role of Greek cafés, the need to record this history is pressing. The Ipswich Art Gallery’s oral history morning tea was an excellent vehicle for understanding the role of Ipswich’s cafés and milk bars (Milkshakes and Wedding Breakfasts: Cafés and Milkbars of Ipswich, April 2004), but the women involved with Greek cafés, often older women and those for whom English is a second language, are reluctant to speak publicly. Women, especially, are more comfortable when interviewed in their own homes. Written, audio, and/or video recordings of private interviews, as well as telephone conversations therefore proved the best way to document their stories. The surroundings in which these took place were an important factor in their success. A video interview with Maria, for example, was almost unusable because she was working at the time amidst traffic noise in the open‐fronted Brisbane Street café. Subsequent video and audio interviews were recorded in homes where it was relatively quiet and women were more relaxed. Situations where there were multiple interviewees also caused difficulties and language was sometimes a problem, as many older Greek‐Australian women have limited English. 4 Subjects originally included a Greek woman who worked in several cafés over nearly fifty years, a non‐Greek woman who worked at Londy’s café in the forties and fifties, a café proprietor’s daughter who ‘grew up’ at the Regal in the seventies, a produce merchant who delivered to Greek cafés, and older Ipswich residents who were regular customers. The research process followed a ‘snowballing’ effect, however, as respondents and local amateur historians, who have lived all their lives in Ipswich and are valuable sources of local information, provided access to other potential 4
The Oral History Association of Australia website is a useful guide to the nature of oral history and how to conduct interviews: http://www.ohaa.net.au/guidelines.htm. So too is Judith Moyer’s website, Do History: A Step‐by‐Step Guide to Oral History: http://www.dohistory.org/on_your_own/toolkit/oralHistory.html#WHATIS. 4‐6
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subjects.5 Most subjects were interviewed several times to clarify information or better understand their experience as women, children, and/or Greeks. In addition, generous offers of photographs, documents, and artefacts associated with milk bars, which were then copied or photographed, were a serendipitous and particularly satisfying aspect of the project’s oral history component.6 Stories related during the course of this project enable contemporary and future Australians to access the past in an intimate way and gain insights that would otherwise rarely be written down (York 2). Maureen’s account of the time she worked as a waitress at Londy’s café, for example, illuminates a particular slice of Australian life – what it was like to be a local woman working for Greek proprietors in the forties and fifties – and Maria’s story of a fifty‐year journey from Kythera to the Central Milk Bar in Ipswich is a personal account of how it felt to be called ‘dago’ every day by everyday Australians who ‘didn’t mean anything by it.’ As oral historian Barry York explains, they invite an emotional as well as intellectual response in the reader (4‐5). 5
Ian Wilson, President of the Ipswich Historical Society, local historian John Rossiter, and long‐time Whitehead Studios employee Anne Wagner each played a role in trailing the history of local cafés. 6
Joanne Stewart, Maureen Sheppard, Jack and Zeta Stathis, Helen Kentos, Peter and Mary Londy kindly loaned photographs, documents, and crockery and Whitehead Studios, established locally in 1883, is a valuable, though expensive, source of early photographs of Ipswich. Aphrodite and the Mixed Grill 4‐7 4‐8
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Chapter One
Greek Migration and the Café Phenomenon
“If there is a single word which summarises the lives of most Greeks in Australia early in the 20th century it is shop‐keeping.” – Gilchrist 1: 190 Aphrodite and the Mixed Grill 4‐9 Although fiercely proud of their country’s ancient traditions, the Greeks have always been a migratory people, repeatedly forced to flee political instability and the poverty of an arid landscape (Conomos, History vi). Demographer and historian James Jupp records the pattern of Greek migration from the 1850s, which saw a stream of Greeks leave their impoverished homeland for Australia’s gold fields: three hundred Greeks lived in Australia in 1871; encountering no administrative barriers to Greek immigration prior to WWI, one thousand Greeks lived in Australia by 1900; by 1911 there were two thousand; by 1947, twelve thousand (Jupp, People 508‐510).7 Jupp views the chain effect of immigrants sponsoring fellow countrymen, which helped them adapt to a sometimes hostile environment, as a central aspect of Greek migration (People 521). If the chain effect is a central feature of Greek migration to Australia, the entry of Greek immigrants into cafés is a singular phenomenon. Early Greek immigrants were mostly illiterate, itinerant bachelors intending to return home as wealthy men. Arriving in Sydney, they spread throughout rural New South Wales and up into Queensland, working as labourers, maritime workers, fishermen, market gardeners and canecutters. By the 1890s, however, a surprising number worked in food service industries (Conomos, History vii; Jupp, People 510). 7
Jupp explains that when the United States imposed limits on immigration in 1924, the rate of Greek immigration to Australia escalated, although Greeks wishing to enter Australia required forty pounds or a sponsor’s written guarantee. By 1928, a quota restricted entry to those Greeks who could supply a landing fee of 50‐ 250 pounds. British immigrants required three pounds. In 1930, entry was open only to Europeans with relatives in Australia or five hundred pounds in the bank (People 95). 4‐10
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Fig.1: John Kentos behind the counter of the Wintergarden Milk Bar in East Street, Ipswich in the 1950s. The authors of ‘A Shop Full of Dreams: Ethnic Small Business in Australia’ claim that by 1911, 70% of the 400 Kytherians living in NSW owned or worked in fish shops, oyster bars, and restaurants (Collins et al. 44‐5). A 1916 survey similarly reveals that most Greeks were employed in cafés, restaurants, fruit, fish and confectionery outlets (Jupp, People 510). Furthermore, Collins et al. show that as the first Greeks with whom Anglo‐Celtic Australians had contact, Greek shopkeepers pioneered Australia’s post‐war multicultural society (65). Even in 1981, when they still represented less than 2% of the total population, Greek immigrants still owned 1/3 of all takeaway food shops in Australia (Collins et al. 63, 82‐3).8 Using Ipswich as a case study, this project follows the extraordinary story of the young Greek men who fled the poverty of islands like Kythera and found themselves building a network of shops throughout Australia. In the decades that followed, they brought women from Greece to work beside them and the Greek café and the Greek shopkeeping family became Australian icons. 8
Others confirm this phenomenon: Conomos notes that 140 of the 176 Greeks in Brisbane in 1916 worked in the café industry (History 117); “In the early years of [the twentieth century], it was estimated that 85 per cent of first generation Greeks owned or worked in cafés, milk bars, fish and chips shops and other small businesses” (Wilton and Bosworth qtd. in Collins et al 64); while Alexakis and Janiszewski set out to contradict the stereotype of the Greek shopkeeper (8‐9), they too acknowledge the pronounced Greek presence in the food catering trades (14). Aphrodite and the Mixed Grill 4‐11 Athanasios Dimitrios Comino, ‘The Oyster King’ from Kythera, was the first Greek to start a food‐catering business in Australia. With no English and little knowledge about cooking fish, he opened the first Greek fish shop in Sydney in 1878 (Conomos, History 79‐80; Nicklin 45; Collins et al 44).9 As Conomos explains, “A Greek had gained a foot‐hold in the food‐service industry in Sydney. It was an event that was to have far‐reaching consequences for Greek migration to New South Wales and Queensland” (History 80). Other fish shops soon opened. These late nineteenth and early twentieth century ‘Oyster Saloons’ were the precursors of the Greek café. Food preparation, at that time, required no education or particular skills and Greek immigrants were willing to endure the long hours of hard work and harsh conditions necessary to send money home. Alexakis and Janiszewski note that such employment also suited the Greeks’ sea‐oriented and farming backgrounds and was independent of the union restrictions on foreign labour in heavy industry prior to the 1940s (106). The food industry was then also relatively free from the ‘interference’ of health inspectors. Like Comino’s Greek employees, many young Greek immigrants served unofficial catering apprenticeships in similar urban businesses and gained the experience and capital necessary to establish their own shops. During the first two decades of the twentieth century, the promise of a better life allied with the ‘ripple effect’ of chain migration brought hundreds of Greeks, particularly from the poverty‐stricken island of Kythera, to work in cafés, oyster saloons, and fish shops in New South Wales (Conomos, History 79‐80). Some workers “lived the lives of slaves” (Conomos, History 84‐5, Janiszewski and Alexakis 7).10 Hours were routinely long, pay was minimal, accommodation consisted of a shop floor, and employers were hard even on their relatives (Conomos, History 122 etc). A remarkable feature of this period is the age of these men and their capacity to save, meet familial obligations, and invest in further enterprises. Gilchrist observes that 9
Collins, et al explain that running a fish shop required relatively little initial capital, involved skills that were easy to acquire, and poor English was not an insurmountable problem (45). Peter Cominos, the son of a man who owned Cominos’ café in Cairns, agrees that the move to set up oyster saloons was not unexpected in a nation of fisherman. 10
Employers and their families worked the same long hours even after their cafés began to prosper. 4‐12
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some of these “Greek venturers [. . .] were managers in their teens; many were proprietors in their early twenties” (1: 192).11 Greek Cafés in Ipswich, Queensland “Oh, Londy’s was where you went. You should have seen the Easter eggs – they had a big display right up to the ceiling. People came from Brisbane just to see them.” – Ipswich resident at St Mary’s Hostel, Raceview Brisbane boasted oyster saloons as early as 1893. By 1910, twenty‐six fish shops and cafés had opened as chain migration brought thousands of Greeks to Queensland, where cafés were magnets for those ‘apprenticed’ in New South Wales cafés (Gilchrist 1: 233; Conomos, History 78, 94, 97). One of the first proprietors, Gianis K. Mavrokefalos, opened a café in 1901 (Conomos, History 81, 98). Known as John ‘Gero’ (Old Man) Black, he pioneered Brisbane’s Greek café industry and, like many Greek shopkeepers, performed the role of ‘sheet‐anchor’ – sponsoring relatives’ and countrymen’s passage to Australia and employing them until they worked off the fare. He also provided accommodation, counsel, and guardianship, and loaned money to purchase shops (Conomos, History 88, 98‐9, 103). Greek cafés soon spread across the Queensland landscape as a result.12 Several Greeks had settled in Ipswich by 1891 and from the end of the nineteenth century were becoming established, as they were elsewhere, in the food service industry (Gilchrist 1: 114). Janiszewski’s records show that in 1916, Ioannis Mavrokefalos (John Denis Black), aged 42, was an oyster saloon proprietor, Efstathios Mavrokefalos, aged 28, was a shop assistant, and Gerasimos Mavroudas, aged 38, and Nikolaos Skavos, aged 31, were cooks (Janiszewski email dated 6th August 2005, 3:17 pm). Conomos claims that by 1910, Ipswich was one of eight 11
Also see Conomos (History 92). There were no cafés in rural towns in 1900, but by 1910 there were thirty‐three cafés in twenty‐one Queensland towns, half of them with Kytherian owners. By the end of the second decade of the twentieth century, Greeks traded in at least fifty‐two towns, including those like Muttaburra, Hughenden, and Kuridala, Innisfail and Babinda in the west and far north. Most larger towns had several Greek cafés (Conomos, History 117). 12
Aphrodite and the Mixed Grill 4‐13 provincial Queensland towns where Greek café proprietors were laying the foundations for Greek settlement and business in provincial areas (History 112). According to Conomos, John Dennis Black, a relative of John ‘Gero’ Black, opened what was probably Ipswich’s first oyster saloon/café, the Australia Café, in Brisbane Street about 1901 (History 104). (This should not be confused with the Harry Marendy’s Australia Café, which operated in Brisbane Street from about 1935–
1950.) Black bought another oyster saloon in Nicholas Street in about 1914 (Conomos, History 140). The 1918 Block Plans show that, in addition to these, Stratigos & Company owned an oyster saloon in Brisbane Street. To put the three oyster saloons in the context of food outlets operating in Ipswich in 1918, eight other food shops, probably owned by non‐Greek Australians, are evident on the Block Plans.13 At that time, therefore, Greeks owned over a quarter of the food outlets, possibly a third. 14 According to Conomos, most rural towns had a Greek café and larger towns had more than one (History 104, 111). Research conducted for this project confirms that in the Ipswich CBD in the 1940s/50s Greeks ran at least nine cafés, a hamburger bar and two fruit shops with milk bars. That number does not include the early Nicholas Street oyster saloon, which proprietors Theo and Nick Sklavos closed down during the depression, another Café Australia that the Londy’s owned in Nicholas Street, although this too could be Black’s Nicholas Street saloon, the two cafés that opened 13
Mrs Klopsch had Refreshment Rooms about six doors uphill from Marsellos and Spathis in Brisbane Street; the Khaki Tea Rooms and E. H. Wilson, a pastry cook, were just across the street; the Café Majestic, later known as Marsh’s café was several doors around the corner from Brisbane Street in Bell Street; W. J. Berry’s Refreshment Rooms were several doors around the corner from Brisbane Street in Nicholas Street with I. Ham’s Refreshment Rooms opposite near Bearkley’s Café, which was several doors closer to the railway line on the site of the Capitol Café remembered in the forties; Whitehouse’s Café was near the railway line in Nicholas Street. 14
Marble Bar, Thomas’ premises on the western side of Rawlings in Brisbane Street, was possibly a Greek café (Block Plan IPS. P1/169). It is unlikely that the Marble Bar was a hotel, since other hotels are designated by the word ‘hotel’ on the Block Plans. Gilchrist notes a café called the Marble Bar Café in Grafton c. 1912 (1: 208) and several Greek cafés in other towns were called Marble Café (Conomos, History viii, 134) or American Bar (Conomos, History 112). Conomos notes that the name Marble Café was derived from the marble imported from Italy for use in café counters (History 106). 4‐14
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after that time, and those beyond the CBD (Conomos, History 420).15 Ipswich, then, had a comparatively large number of Greek cafés. Respondents remember the following: Marendy’s Australia Café, Londy’s Café, the Regal Café (possibly the site of Stratigos’ oyster saloon in 1918), the City Café (John Black’s original oyster saloon), the Metro Café, Veneris’ Hamburger Bar, Tony’s Café, and the Central Milk Bar and Café – all in Brisbane Street – the Ritz Café in Bell Street, the Sydney Café in Nicholas Street, and the Wintergarden Milk Bar in East Street, as well as Nick Penglis’ Fruit Shop, Nick Vergotis’ pie stall, and George Petrohilos’ Big Apple in Nicholas Street. As was the case throughout Australia, numerous Kytherians settled in Ipswich. The pattern of chain migration brought many members from some families. In fact, a significant proportion of one village in Kythera worked in Ipswich cafés; the Londy, Kentrotis, Marendy, Pavlakis, Stathis, Samios, and Kallinicos families all came from the village of Fratsia. Reputed to be the home of the goddess Aphrodite, Kythera was certainly the birthplace of many Greek families who owned cafés in Ipswich. As Alexakis and Janiszewski point out, however, many immigrants returned to Greece. Ipswich café owner Jim Pavlakis now lives in Kythera. Ironically, while his home in Ipswich bears the mark of his Kytherian heritage – Fratsia is emblazoned in the house’s wrought iron front gate – his house in Kythera bears the name Ipswich.16 15
From the establishment of the first oyster saloon in 1901 to the demolition of Samios’ café in the 1980s, however, Ipswich had far more than ten Greek cafés, depending on how the number is calculated: separate premises that passed from hand to hand, Greek families that moved from shop to shop, or every enterprise commenced by a Greek in any premises. In the latter case the number is far in excess of Conomos’ estimation, which perhaps refers only to the number in operation during ‘the golden age’ of Greek cafés in the 1940s. No respondents, for example, remember a café owned by Nick and Theo Sklavos, who Conomos notes lost their Ipswich café during the depression (420). 16
Alexakis and Janiszewski point that other aspects of chain migration to Australia prior to WWII are less well known. The lack of men left in Kythera is discussed later. The effects on local economic viability were severe, however, and a photographic essay by Alexakis and Janiszewski reveals abandoned dwellings, which have collapsed, entombing personal items like family photographs, diaries, clothes, and furniture, and decaying villages that have become ‘ghost towns’: “The principle legacy of unbridled depopulation is a landscape inhabited mostly by elderly residents, and peppered with disintegrating villages, unkempt roads, unploughed filed, collapsed windmills, and abandoned homes, schools and churches” (115). Aphrodite and the Mixed Grill 4‐15 Greek Cafes in Ipswich 1. The City Café Closed in the 1970s 80 Brisbane Street beside the Palais Royal Hotel on the East Street corner. 2. The Metro Cafe Lease not renewed after a kitchen fire in 1963 Brisbane Street nearly opposite the City Café. 3. The Australia Café Closed 1950 Brisbane Street, three doors down from the bank on corner of Bell and Brisbane Streets (Trustee building) The right‐hand half of the North Star Hotel building on the corner of Brisbane and Ellenborough Streets where cinemas are now. In Brisbane Street beside Bayards several doors down from Londy’s (medical centre now) 4. Londy’s Cafe Demolished late 1980s in Kern development 5. The Regal Café Business closed 1977 John Black (1901) then Marcellos and Spathis. Spathis (1915‐33) sold to Jim Strategos, who sold it to a relative Nick Stathis, who later sold to Cassimatis in late 40s. George Andrews (Andreatidis) opened at the end of WWII –
sold to Nick Stathis late 40s. Peter Spathis sold to Londy brothers some time after 1918. Sold to Harry Marendy about 1935. Originally the Paris Café. 1925 – Londy family. Sold to Greek Coplin brothers from Sydney in ’58 and then to Samios brothers in’63. George and Jim Kentrotis ‐ from early 40s until George retired in 1977. Maria and Bill Kentrotis bought 6. The Central Milk Bar Still opposite the Ford the Central from Smith, a non‐
and Café. Still in operation dealership in Brisbane Greek Australian, in 1980. Street, beside where the Vogue Theatre once stood. 7. Veneris’ hamburger bar Brisbane Street opposite Bell Street junction. 8. Tony’s Café Opened about 1950 In Brisbane Street near the Tony and Doris Veneris then Gordon Street junction Jim Pavlakis. Closed about 1980. From about 1930 – Con Between Rissons Produce and T C Beirnes at the river Honianakis then Harry & Christopher Tanos from 1951 end of Nicholas Street. 9. The Sydney Café Tanos family left in 1961 10. The Ritz Café Sold 1968 In Bell Street beside the Ritz Theatre approximately where the food court is now. 11. Wintergarden Milk Bar In East Street beside the Sold 1958 Wintergarden Theatre where R.T. Edwards Electrical is now. Tony and Doris Veneris Closed about 1950. George Kallinicos ‐ from 1942. John (George Kentrotis’ brother) and Helen Kentos from about 1950. 4‐16
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City Café (also known as the Australia Café) Conomos’ records show that Peter Spathis noted Black’s businesses when he went to Ipswich in 1915 and, with fellow employee George Marcellos, helped Black run the two cafés (To 1939 10, History 104, 140).17 According to Elpiniki Black, when John’s brother became ill, she and John went to Brisbane to help run his Ithaca Café in Queen Street (the Mavrokefalos family came from Ithaca). They sold the Australia Café and the Nicholas Street saloon to Spathis and Marcellos in about 1916. Peter Spathis refers to the shop as the City Café, indicating that it had a change of name at some point. When Marcellos left about eighteen months later, Nick Sklavos took over the partnership, running the Nicholas Street saloon while Spathis ran the City Café (interviews conducted by Denis Conomos 1980‐84). The 1918 Block Plans confirm that Spathis and Marcellos owned two oyster saloons. They indicate the position of the City Café on the western side of the Palais Royal Hotel, now number 80 Brisbane Street, and one in Nicholas Street (Block 10 IPS. P1/171 and Block 77&77A IPS. P1/171). Also, a close‐up of an early photograph of Nicholas Street, now the mall, shows an oyster saloon in the position indicated on those plans. Fig 2: the Oyster Saloon on right of the picture is probably the second saloon that Black established in about 1914. Note the Blackall Memorial at the intersection of Brisbane and Nicholas Streets. 17
Since the 1918 Block Plans indicate that Marcellos and Spathis owned two oyster saloons, one in Brisbane Street and one in Nicholas Street, so it is likely that Black sold both establishments to them.
Aphrodite and the Mixed Grill 4‐17 Later photographs of the building at 80 Brisbane Street (uphill from the southwest corner of the Brisbane and East Street intersection) record the name of the City Café and its owner Peter Spathis. This building is, therefore, the site of Black’s Australia Café of 1901, the first café in Ipswich. Of all the buildings that housed Greek cafés, this is the only one that survives today (Fig. 3). Fig. 3: A photograph of the City Café, 80 Brisbane Street, the site of the first Greek café in Ipswich, taken during Spathis’ ownership 1916‐1933. Top floor windows announce the café’s Oyster Grill Rooms and Ladies Special Dining Rooms. Peter Spathis sold the City Café to Jim Strategos, who subsequently sold to Nick Stathis just before WWII. Several non‐Greek residents claim that while wedding receptions were held at Whitehouse’s Café and at the Capitol Café in Nicholas Street, they were not held at Ipswich’s Greek cafés. The function room above the City Café, then, is a rare example of a function area where Ipswich wedding receptions were held. The wedding of Jim Strategos’ daughter was the last function to be held at the City Cafe because, according to Nick’s son Jack, food and staff were difficult to procure during the war years (Fig. 4). 4‐18
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Jack remembers that his father turned the upstairs area into a billiard saloon during the war and divided the café into two: a fish shop on one side and a café on the other. Fig. 4: 1941 – A wedding that was the last function to be held in the reception area above the City Café. Jack Stathis is third from the left in the front row. As a young boy in WWII, Jack recalls a fight breaking out between American and Australian soldiers in the City Café. When American MPs attended the disturbance, they fired several shots into the air, putting holes in the ceiling and narrowly missing people playing billiards upstairs. Jack also recalls watching “thousands of Lighthorsemen riding down street Brisbane Street” on their way to the war; when they passed, the street was covered in horse manure. Also during the war, a low‐
flying aircraft spooked a horse that was pulling a cart in Brisbane Street. The driver, a Greek who owned a shop near the North Ipswich end of the town bridge, was killed. Aphrodite and the Mixed Grill 4‐19 Metro Café When Nick sold the City Café some time after WWII to Jack Cassimatis – Jack’s mother’s cousin – he bought the Metro Café across the street. The Metro had been opened after the war by another Greek, George Andrews, who was able to procure a cigarette quota because he was a serviceman and, as Jack Stathis explains, “if you couldn’t get a tobacco quota you may as well shut up shop” (2nd October 2005). Fig. 5: Vasiliki Stathis, Jack’s Mother, her cousin and a waitress at the Metro Café. Back at the City Café, Jack Cassimatis’ wife Pat ran the front of the cafe and Jack ran the kitchen. According to Jim Penglis, they owned the City Café until Jack died in the 70s. The exact date is difficult to ascertain because the couple had no children, but the City Café, Ipswich’s the first Greek café, was possibly one of the longest‐running Greek cafés in the country (7th January, 2006). The kitchen at the Metro caught fire in 1963 when a toaster was left on and the lease on the building was not renewed. 4‐20
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Londy’s Café Of the many Greek cafés in Ipswich in the 40s, Londy’s Café is one most people remember. Londy’s was a ‘double’ café with two entrances and three curved display windows on the street, one with water trickling down inside to cool the fish and stop flies settling on the glass. Londy’s had separate areas for fish, cigarettes and confectionery, the milk bar, and toasted sandwiches. Fig. 6 Easter egg display when Samios owned Londy’s. There were booths along the mirrored walls and tables in the central space. Londy’s Easter egg display is universally recalled when respondents reminisce about Greek cafés. Later owners, the Samios family, maintained the tradition (Fig. 6). Harry George Leondarakis was born in Kythera in 1896 and migrated to Australia at the age of fifteen. He lived with his uncle Mr Andronicus in Toowoomba. Harry’s name was anglicised to Londy and over the next eight years he also lived in Warwick and Rockhampton before settling in Ipswich in 1921. According to Post Office records, Harry, Charles, and Jim Londy and Jim’s son Mick owned two cafes in Brisbane Street Ipswich in the early twenties: the Australia and the Paris. (Conomos and Jack Stathis confirm this). The Australia Café was sold to Harry Marendy in the thirties, while the Paris Café became known simply as Londy’s. Aphrodite and the Mixed Grill 4‐21 Fig. 7: Harry Londy (standing second from left) with staff and Regal Café proprietors outside Londy’s Café in the forties. Cafés were commonly called after the name of the proprietors. Mick Londy remembers that the Londy’s briefly owned another shop, also called the Australia Café, in Nicholas Street. This was later called the Sydney Fruit Mart (interview conducted by Conomos 1980‐84). According to his son Peter, Harry opened Londy’s café in 1925 on the ground floor of the right hand half of the North Star Hotel building on the corner of Brisbane and Ellenborough Streets. Harry married Theodora Marendy in St Paul’s Cathedral opposite Londy’s Café in 1926 and lived in Ipswich for the rest of his life. 4‐22
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Fig. 8: The Samios family: Kathy Samios, Mary Samios (her sister‐in‐law), and George Samios (Kathy’s brother in the 60s. One Ipswich resident recalls that Bert Hinkler landed his plane in Queens Park early in the 1930s. After lunch at Londy’s, which was laid out in a feast‐like style, Hinkler offered to take any willing staff for a ride in the plane (Narelle, 9th August 2005). During WWII, troops flooded towns and many cafes were unable to keep up with custom. Harry had to procure enough fish, fruit, and poultry from Brisbane to satisfy the needs of Australian and American forces stationed near Ipswich, killing and dressing hundreds of hens behind the shop. He doubled his staff from eight to sixteen during the war years and reduced shop hours to avoid running out of food (Conomos 545). American MPs monitored cafés and, so that they did not have to check the quality of home‐made ice‐cream, insisted that cafés serving US forces stock only Peter’s Ice‐Cream. Londy’s, like many other cafés, never made their own ice‐cream again. Londy’s was renovated after WWII in the ‘modern’ style and the curved front windows were removed. Aphrodite and the Mixed Grill 4‐23 Harry is remembered as a friendly proprietor who met new customers at the door, showed them to a table, and introduced a waitress to them (Don Risson). When he died in 1948, Theodora ran the café with the assistance of a female relative from Toowoomba. She sold the café in 1958 to four Coplin brothers (Jim Penglis 7th January, 2006). The Samios brothers purchased the café in 1963 and ran the business until it closed in the late 80s, when the North Star building, built in 1893, was demolished in the redevelopment of the city centre. The Ritz Café George Minas Kallinicos came to Australia in 1935 at the age of 16. He was ‘apprenticed’ in cafés in Mitchell and Toowoomba before he and his cousin Kosmas Kallinicos converted a warehouse in Bell Street, Ipswich, into the Ritz Café in 1942. When he joined the army, George worked in the officers’ mess; so highly prized were his culinary skills that the officers refused to let him see active service. George bought out his cousin’s share in the café when he returned in 1947. He went to Kythera in 1951 and entered an arranged marriage with Demetra. Together, they ran the café until 1968 when the building was sold to Cribb and Foote and finally consumed in the Kern redevelopment in the 80s. When a theatre opened next door, it took its name from the café. George’s son Manuel remembers that five minutes before intermission, café staff and children alike began rolling chips in newspaper. He also recalls the rock and roll dance competitions, which were sometimes held on Friday nights at the Ritz theatre in the 50s‐60s; he particularly remembers men coming into the café with tight pants, pointed shoes, slicked back hair and matchboxes tucked into their sleeves. According to Manuel, farmers patronised a particular café when they came into town, usually on Wednesdays and Thursdays. For farmers from Fernvale, Lowood, and Esk, it was the Ritz. “People would always have the same meal,” Manuel recalls (8th December, 2005). The café, which had a raised area at the back of the space for tables, was gutted and refurbished in the early 60s. Peters Ice Cream installed a new stainless steel milk bar and refrigeration unit and the cubicles were taken out to allow greater flexibility. 4‐24
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Fig. 9: George Kallinicos behind the counter at the Ritz Café. Like the City Café, the Ritz had an upstairs function room, where weddings were held in the 40s and 50s. George renovated this area in the 50s and operated it as a billiard parlour until 1968. Manuel remembers that, although the parlour was not a rough area, it seemed to arouse that connotation and never became the family venue that was originally envisaged. It was accessed via steps at the side and while he and his brothers were not allowed to go there, they sometimes managed to sneak past their father. Cribbage and five hundred were favourite games and on Saturdays the billiard parlour rang with sound of the races playing on the radio. Manuel remembers that his father had a “lump of 4x2” under the counter, which he would take it out if there was any sign of trouble. “If there was a ruckus overhead, he would race out of the café and upstairs. You’d wait. Then silence, and down he’d come again” (8th December, 2005). Aphrodite and the Mixed Grill 4‐25 Fig. 10: Ipswich’s Greek Cafés are gone, but artefacts pop up in all sorts of places: a plate in a second‐hand shop, a teapot at a garage sale, a sign from the Ritz Café on an Ipswich kitchen wall. A woman, who recalls her grandfather as the town’s biggest SP bookie, says that many Greek cafés, like the pubs, were popular venues for listening to the races, and claims that proprietors of both often acted as agents, talking bets for bookies. According to older residents, everyone knew who the bookies were and where to go to place a bet. Her grandfather had two phone lines to his home and both lines, attended by his daughters‐in‐law, rang all day on Saturdays. Another resident notes, “It was an honest system. Everyone relied on everyone else being honest. And they were.” 4‐26
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Manuel recalls his treatment at the hands of non‐Greek Australians at school. He particularly remembers one science class: a boy “from a well‐known, well respected family” started abusing him within hearing of the teacher, calling him a “greasy dago”. The teacher did nothing and when Manuel asked if he could shift, the teacher replied, “No, you sit there.” One day, a drunk from the pub behind the café in Nicholas Street came into the café and was particularly abusive, calling George a ‘dago’, etc. George asked him to leave the premises, but he refused and the abuse continued. Manuel says, “My father was not a big man, but he was tough.” He recalls his father “leapt the counter and laid into the man with the lump of 4x2.” According to Manuel, the drunk returned with a policeman, who listened to both sides of the story then said, “Mr Kallinicos has the authority to beat the crap out of you in his own café. I never forgot that” (8th December, 2005). The Regal Café: George Kentrotis emigrated from Greece in 1927 aged 20. He worked in Londy’s café until he had saved enough money to bring three brothers out to Australia. With his brother Jim, George bought the café three doors down from Londy’s in the early forties. No information is available about the history of the café prior to 1940, although the Regal Café was possibly situated on the site of Stratigos and Company’s oyster saloon of 1918. Ipswich people remember the Kentrotis brothers’ Regal Café as ‘a long, narrow cafe’ and George’s daughter Joanne believes this may be the result of it being built in a laneway. If this is the case, then the buildings are not the same as those on the 1918 plan, where no laneway is evident. Four large tapestries adorned the Regal Café’s side walls. These are visible on the right‐hand side of the photograph in Fig.16. Joanne remembers that one was a Venetian scene and an Ipswich resident recalls that another depicted a bullfight. Joanne believes the tapestries were in the building when her father bought it. Narrow two‐seater booths lined one side with longer booths for families on the other. The wall mirrors next to the booths had to be cleansed daily of children’s fingerprints. Aphrodite and the Mixed Grill 4‐27 The kitchen was at the back of the shop. Waitresses took orders at the tables and returned with the bill and customers paid at the front counter on the way out. As was the case with most Greek cafés in the forties, staff at the Regal wore casual clothes rather than uniforms. Typically, six staff worked a shift: Jim cooked, with a waitress helping out during busy periods; someone was concerned specifically with the washing up; two people, one of whom was George, handled counter sales; two waitresses took orders and served meals. Fig. 11: Before the Kentrotis family knew their café as the Regal, it was called the Royal Café and Oyster Bar. Similarly, Londy’s was known as the Paris Café. George returned to Greece when he was 53 to find a wife. He and Vasiliki, a beautiful twenty‐five‐year‐old, were married in Greece on the thirteenth of October, 1957. Vasiliki recalls everyone’s surprise at her marrying an old man, but says she was very happy because George was rich by Kytherian standards; she would have her own house and be able to help her family. Like many Greek women her age, Vasiliki had little schooling. She was only eight when WWII began and did not go to school from then on because the teachers were in the army. 4‐28
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She looked after elderly people, sometimes hiding from the Germans with them in the woods. Although she never learned to read or write, Vasiliki acquired enough English to handle money and serve in the café after her children were old enough to go to school, but she had little contact with people after the café closed and has since lost much of her English (15th December, 2005). Her husband died when she was only forty‐nine. This exacerbates the problem, as does the fact that some of her grandchildren speak no Greek. Vasiliki remembers making wine from the grapes they grew in the backyard of their inner city home and trod in a vat underneath the house. She also kept chickens and killed and dressed fifteen hens a fortnight for the café, where they were served with roast vegetables. George and Vasiliki’s daughter also worked in the café, as did Jim Pavlakis until he bought Tony’s Café at the bottom of Brisbane Street. Joanne remembers that the Regal was open from 6am to 11pm, midnight on Fridays and Saturdays. Breakfast was served from 6am and workers called in for cigarettes, coffee, or takeaway toasted sandwiches on the way to work. She also recalls the Fantales, Jaffas, and Minties, which made an enticing display arranged in front of mirrored glass at the confectionery counter. Joanne claims there was a friendly rivalry between the Greek cafés in Ipswich, stemming from pride in who had the best food. Sometimes Vasiliki cooked for thirty people because George would invite them home for a meal on weekends. As one Ipswich resident recalls: “Georgie was kind little man – always nice to people and nice to kids”. George retired in 1977 at the age of 73, having operated the Regal for 36 years. He died in 1980. The shop was leased to others and used for various businesses until it finally closed as a second‐hand record shop when the building was demolished in 1986. Joanne has kept the Regal’s soda fountains and the milkshake machine, some order pads, a heavy stainless steel milkshake container, of the type used prior to aluminium containers, and several battered silver dishes engraved with the name of the café. Thousands of Ipswich residents enjoyed ice‐cream sundaes and milkshakes from these vessels. Aphrodite and the Mixed Grill 4‐29 As the tuckshop convenor at Blair State School, Joanne continues to work in the food catering industry. Fig. 12: George and Jim Kentrotis at the Regal Café in the 1970s.
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Aphrodite and the Mixed Grill 4‐31 Tony and Doris Veneris Crystallie Canaris (known in Australia as Doris) was born in Townsville to Greek parents from the island of Castelloroso, off Rhodes. Her father, who was a fisherman, died of pneumonia when Doris was five and her mother, Anastasia, laundered café tablecloths for threepence each to support her family. Doris remembers helping to iron them. In about 1946, when Doris was twenty‐two, she married thirty‐two‐year‐old Kytherian Tony Veneris and came to live with him in Ipswich. Having started work in the Ritz café, Tony eventually leased a shop in Brisbane Street opposite the Bell Street junction and opened a hamburger bar (Fig. 12). When the bank later took over the building, Tony bought the block of shops beside the Vogue/Parkside picture theatre in Brisbane Street, opposite the Gordon Street junction, and opened Tony’s Café. Smith’s milk bar had been trading on the other side of the theatre from the early days of talking pictures. In 1956, Doris’ son Theo was born. Like Doris, Theo was five when his father died. In the early hours of the morning on April 6th 1962, Doris answered a knock at the door to find police and family friends on the doorstep and heard the tragic news that Tony had been found nearby in his car. Doris had been anxious that Tony was late home – he normally closed the café about 11pm. Tony had been shot in the head at close range with a .22 rifle and the day’s takings in a Gladstone bag were missing. Within hours, the rifle, a little over one hundred pounds, and identifiable articles from the bag were discovered at the home of the man Doris suspected of the crime. The man, who regularly delivered meat to the café, shot Tony to pay some debts. Because he was a café owner, everyone knew Tony Veneris. Recalling that St Paul’s church was full at Tony’s funeral and that a friend had counted over hundred cars, Doris says, “Personality plus, my husband was” (February 2nd, 2006). One resident recalls that it was the first time anything like that had ever happened in Ipswich. 4‐32
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That the story repeatedly made front‐page news in the Queensland Times, the Telegraph and the Courier Mail over the next months indicates that crimes of this nature were unusual at that time. The man was jailed for Tony’s murder, but Doris hopes he has ulcers so that he cannot enjoy his food. “What worse punishment is there than that?” she asks. Fig. 13: Doris second from the left and Tony second from the right in their first shop. Aphrodite and the Mixed Grill 4‐33 Determined that her son’s childhood would not be overshadowed by his father’s death, Doris told Theo that Tony was away on business. Theo learned about his father’s murder when he was in high school. At the age of forty, he found a stack of newspapers in a wardrobe at his family home. “It was like reading a book when you already know the ending,” Theo says. “But this was my father they were talking about. It was chilling.” Ironically, when he was a youth, Theo applied for a job at Cribb and Foote’s hardware on the site that had once been the Ritz Café where his father had started work. Doris says, “Fifty kids applied for the job and they all had their mothers with them.” Theo went alone, having told his mother that if asked why he should get the job he would say, “I am willing to work hard and make money for the company.” Theo won the position and has now been in the hardware business for over thirty years. Doris’ advice to her son was “You don’t want to make millions; just enjoy your life. And always treat people with respect.” 4‐34
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Doris began a book exchange and Ipswich’s first Coffee Lounge and art gallery in the shops. For a time Jim Pavlakis (brother of Maria Kentrotis of the Regal Café) ran the café, thereafter known as Tony’s Snack Bar, before returning to Greece. In the ’74 floods, Theo helped to evacuated the books before floodwaters inundated the block of shops, but Jim was not so lucky. Cold rooms full of produce were submerged beneath thirty feet of water and Theo remembers a luxuriant crop of tomatoes that sprang up in the rich river silt behind the shops after the cleanup. Eighty‐one‐year‐
old Doris loves books and has a soft spot for Phantom comics. She still opens the book exchange from Monday to Friday, working whatever hours she feels like. “People go out of their way to say hello to me,” she says, “because I make them feel welcome.” The Sydney Café The Sydney Café traded in premises between Risson’s Produce and T. C. Beirne’s in Nicholas Street, which was at that time the main road between Toowoomba and Brisbane. Con Honianakis owned the café from about 1930 and Don Risson from the neighbouring produce business recalls that Con’s sister, Mrs Madulakis, who always wore a black dress and a black apron, made “the best ice‐cream you ever tasted in your life,” (12th February, 2006). He also recalls the pot of soup on the stove out the back in winter. He was welcome to help himself whenever he wanted. The café operated originally as two shops with a connecting door – one side was a milk bar and the other was a fish shop – but because of a winning casket ticket, Con was able to renovate, removing the wall to make one big shop. Like many of the Greek proprietors, Con, Nick Penglis from the fruit shop in Nicholas, and a man named Pappas, enjoyed a weekly game of preffa, which is a kind of three‐handed bridge. The losers bought the group’s weekly casket ticket. On this occasion, Con won the game and the other two surrendered the money for the ticket, which Con bought in his name. The ticket won first prize – six thousand pound. When Con refused to split the winnings, the others took him to court and won but, according to Jim Penglis, could not collect their shares because of a hundred‐year‐old gaming act forbidding the collection of money on a card game. Con died of a heart attack in the café. Aphrodite and the Mixed Grill 4‐35 In 1949, at the age of 28, Harry Tanos came to Australia to join his older brother Christopher. The pair leased the Sydney Café in 1951, trading under the name Dunn & Co. to avoid some of the ill‐feeling directed at immigrants. Harry recalls that in the 50s the café had cubicles down both sides of the shop, seating sixty people. Harry was the cook. With a staff of six, the café was renowned for its fish and chips, which were sold wrapped in newspaper. According to Harry, theirs was the only shop selling fresh fish in Ipswich during the war because they had a licence to buy 10% of the fish from the Brisbane Fish Market. Harry recalls that on Fridays he commonly peeled five 150 pound sacks of potatoes and cleaned and cooked 600 pieces of fish. Given that Londy’s, the other fish shop in town, did a similar trade, Ipswich consumed over a thousand pieces of fish on Fridays during this period. Harry remembers, however, that after a severe cyclone, a Catholic archbishop granted special permission for Catholics to eat meat on Fridays because of the resulting fish shortage. “And that,” says Harry, “was the end of it. If it was alright one year, it was alright the next” (31.1.06). Fig. 14: The Sydney Café in 1954/5: Christopher Tanos, his wife Photini, Ipswich‐born Georgina and her husband Charlie Kitas, the son of Harry’s first cousin, and Harry Tanos. Two of the four soda fountains mounted on the milk bar dispensed cold water. 4‐36
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Because pubs closed at 10pm at that time, customers from the North Australian Hotel across the road often ended the night with a meal at the Sydney Café, which closed at about 11pm. Harry remembers one customer in particular. Harry later discovered that the customer who often called in for a meal on Friday or Saturday nights was Jo Bjelke‐Peterson on his way home to Kingaroy after Parliament finished. Harry also recalls that salesmen who travelled all over the country marvelled at the price of food in Ipswich’s cafés, claiming that it was the cheapest in Australia. After Mick Londy called a meeting, at which all but Nick Stathis from the Metro Café agreed to a price rise, meals went up by threepence across town. In the early sixties, Harry travelled around Europe before going to Cypress to find a wife. Maroula and Harry were married in 1962, but in Harry’s absence, life at the Sydney Café evaporated. Health inspectors had already demanded the Tanos brothers start selling fish and chips in white paper rather than newspaper, but Harry explains that sixpence could not cover the cost of fish and chips and white paper. Inspectors now insisted on upgrades to the kitchen, where soot from the coal stove caused problems. The owners refused to sell the shop and Harry and Christopher were unwilling to outlay the significant cost involved when they could be forced out of the premises at any time. In 1961, they closed the shop and the Greek owners sold to T. C. Beirne’s, who extended their department store into the premises. Harry and Maroula bought a convenience store in Lutwyche Road the following year. When nearby homes were removed to widen the road, they converted the shop into a snack bar. New neighbours like Charcoal Chicken arrived, but even when McDonalds built right next door, Harry’s Shop survived. It finally closed its doors after forty years in 2002 because insurance premiums more than tripled. Once a week at the Greek Club, Harry enjoys playing cards and talking to the ‘other young men’. For a man of eighty‐four years, he has an astounding memory for detail and hopes to outdo his grandfather, who died aged 115. Maroula recalls, “In the olden days, I have to have an appointment to talk to him during the day. He loves talking.” Aphrodite and the Mixed Grill 4‐37 Fig. 15: After more than forty years, Don Risson visits Harry Tanos at Harry’s Shop, now Harry and Maroula’s living area. Penglis’ Fruit Shop Nick Penglis had a fruit shop from 1942 to 1953 in Nicholas Street between Berry’s Smallgoods and the Commonwealth Bank. According to his daughter Ruth, all of the Greek fruit shops, including the Big Apple further down Nicholas Street, had a milk bar (Jan 7th, 2006). She recalls that theirs had a marble top with soda fountains, tins of ice‐cream stored in the refrigeration units, and bottles of McMahon’s soft drinks. Nick’s son Jim recalls that they won the contract to supply Amberley during the war, a deal which secured extra petrol rations. Jim grew produce at their Raceview farm, as they could not otherwise procure enough produce during the war years to supply the RAAF’s needs. 4‐38
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Two Italian internees were released into Jim’s care during the war to work the farm; he provided them with accommodation, cigarettes and pocket money. In 1954, Jim bought a milk run and in 1956 he went into the fish business, running a fish shop near the Prince of Wales in Brisbane Street. He left Ipswich in 1976, but continued to supply many Ipswich cafés with fish and groceries. The remaining cafés, Marendy’s Australia Café and the Wintergarden and Central Milkbars, are featured in Women and the Greek Café. It should be noted that Greeks also owned numerous cafés in the districts surrounding Ipswich. The Andonara family, for instance, had a café in Rosewood, which was sold to non‐Greek Australians in the early 40s. There were cafés in Boonah (Conomos 120) and Kalbar (Jim Penglis 7th January, 2006). Conomos mentions a café that traded in Laidley in 1908 (111); this may be Tom Lemnos’ oyster saloon, which Gilchrist notes (1: 234). Fonda Marendy had a café in the sixties at Redbank beside the School of Arts, Bill Comino traded at Lowood, and Kosmas Kallinicos had a café in Gatton (Manuel Kallinicos 8th December, 2005). In addition, Greeks owned businesses other than cafés in Ipswich, and this is still the case. Aphrodite and the Mixed Grill 4‐39 4‐40
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