In 1982, documentary maker Effy Alexakis commenced a detailed and ongoing research project investigating the historical and contemporary Greek Australian presence, both nationally and internationally. Socio-cultural historian Leonard Janiszewski joined her the following year. Their joint project ‘In Their Own Image: Greek Australians’ is now recognised as one of the most comprehensive visual, oral, and literary archives on Greek Australians. Their initial aim was to break down the pre-existing stereotypes of Greeks in Australia – such as the ‘urban stereotype’ of the Greek café, milk bar or fish’n’chip shop proprietor and the ‘folkloric stereotype’ of Greek festivals and dancers in traditional costume. These were dissolved within the broad and diverse plethora of occupational pursuits and sociocultural activities engaged in by Greek Australians, both past and present, and on a national scale. A sweeping, fresh panorama of a people’s migration, settlement, and identity emerged. Exhibitions, publications, and film documentaries followed.
While Greeks have entered a variety of occupations in the 200 years since their initial arrival in Australia, Alexakis and Janiszewski understood that they have played a large part in Australia’s food-catering industry, particularly through the establishment of the Greek café. The occupational stereotype of the Greek café existed because of their abundant numbers and popularity, and as the enterprise was the most common social and business point of contact between British Australians and Greek Australians.
The importance of the Greek café was also recognised in memory by previous proprietors, staff, and customers. Unfortunately the Greek café had only received a thimble measure of recognition within the seminal publication on the history of eating in Australia: Michael Symons’ One Continuous Picnic (1st edition 1982, 2nd edition 2007). Symons’ relative silence on the Greek café provided an irresistible opportunity for Alexakis and Janiszewski.
In the mid-1980s Alexakis and Janiszewski recognised that, surprisingly, an American element of influence was clearly present in the Greek café. Early historical photos feature Greek café window signage declaring ‘American Ice Cream and Chocolates’. Interviewees had spoken of Greek migration to America and then Australia, of the consequent ‘American style’ of Australia’s Greek cafés, or of their personal enjoyment of ‘American Beauty’ sundaes and ‘American milkshakes and sodas’, how the cafés captured a sense of ‘Hollywood’ as seen in the cinemas, or were their introduction to rock’n’roll music. The pair pursued this theme within both field and archival research and were well rewarded. The ‘Greek Café Project’ became a major area of investigation within the overall ‘In Their Own Image: Greek Australians’ project.
Over the course of three decades having completed hundreds of field trips, undertaken almost 2,000 interviews across five countries, taken thousands of photographs, and collected innumerable historical images, Alexakis and Janiszewski have been able to confidently negate Symons’ failure.
THE BOOK – AN INSIGHT
What has arisen is an Australian story with significant international components that clearly identifies the Greek diaspora as a vehicle which provided Australia with access to a global flow of ideas and experiences – particularly from the United States. Alexakis and Janiszewski argue that the Greek café and milk bar were a ‘Trojan Horse’ for the Americanisation of Australian eating and social habits from the very start of the 20th century. While British Australians were still served their familiar steak and eggs and mixed grills, Greeks also provided American influences such as commercial food catering ideas, products, technology, music, and architectural style, combined with the cafés’ close working association with cinemas. Essentially, Greek cafés and milk bars were selling an American dream: that life could be better, richer, and fuller.
British Australian families enjoyed immersing themselves in the fantasy of ‘modern American culture’ that was transmitted via the Greek café. Sitting in booths listening to the jukebox and admiring the café’s Californian ‘Streamline Moderne’ American Art Deco architecture, they could purchase a mixed grill with an ‘American Beauty’ fancy sundae or a ‘spider’ soda drink, before entering the picture theatre next door to enjoy the latest Hollywood film. By the 1940s, ‘American hamburgers’ were also becoming popular, with Jim Tsaoucis of the Aussie Café in Parkes, New South Wales, offering ‘extra special American hamburgers’ in preference to the café’s ‘special grills’. Mary McDermott (née Conway), waitressed in Greek cafés during the 1960s and points out: “Greek cafés were a little bit of Hollywood, a little bit of American life… that’s why they were called the Niagara, the Monterey, the California, and the Golden Gate!”
Greek cafés became significant points for eating, meeting and conversing in cities, suburbs and country towns as they offered generally excellent quick service, long opening hours, competitive prices, a conscious catering to British Australian preferred tastes and a much needed outlet for entertainment.
Recalling Greek cafés of the 1930s and 1940s in the central west of New South Wales, Mervyn Campbell states: “Many a time you would have gone hungry at night if it hadn’t had been for a Greek café. You’d get into a country town after the hotel or dining room had closed and you’d have nowhere to get a meal. But there was always a Greek ready to serve you a mixed grill. . . they’d be open in country towns at seven o’clock in the morning and closing at midnight. A Greek would be open almost all the time. ‘Meals at all hours’ was the Greek slogan…Australian meals [were served]—a straight out mixed grill. Ham and eggs, bacon and eggs, and your cold salad…They [the Greek café proprietors] didn’t introduce any type of Greek cooking at all but they did have sodas, milkshakes, and ice cream sundaes… they gave terrific service, long hours… you could have a feed and meet your mates or take your girl for date.”
Joseph Toms, who frequented Greek cafés in south-western New South Wales during the late 1940s and the 1950s, expands on their importance, particularly to rural communities: “Nine out of ten cafés in the southern Riverina were Greek…the most popular names of the cafés were the Spot, Capitol, the Niagara, and sure, a few Parthenons the cafés catered for locals and the surrounding district… they played a crucial role in the development of Australia—they provided a sense of community, [as] the social centre of the town was the Greek café.”
Thelma Pearson (née Taylor) waitressed in Greek cafés during the 1940s in Sydney and rural New South Wales. She recalls that “Greeks were very, very good with food and cafés… I really fitted in well with all the Greek families.” For Thelma, Greek cafés brought the local community together: “They were the centre of social activity… a place to eat, talk, and belong… if you wanted to catch-up on the latest news you’d go to the café. The Greeks knew everyone and they served everyone with a smile. They made you feel at home—everyone was part of a large extended family that was the local community.” Joan Margaritis (née Farquharson) waitressed in Greek cafés in Queensland during the early 1970s and considers that “you felt at home in a Greek cafe”, that “they were the focal point…where people used to meet… ‘I’ll meet you at the Greeks’, was a popular saying”. Joanne Kirkman of the New South Wales cotton-farming town of Wee Waa recalls,”when I was a teenager, the café was ‘the’ meeting place… all the kids would hang out there”. Peter (Beneto) Veneris’ family ran the Blue Bird Café in Lockhart in south-western New South Wales for almost 70 years. For Veneris, the café was “the heartthrob of the town”.
Food catering enterprises such as cafés and milk bars in Australia proved to be attractive sources of employment for Greeks providing regular income, maintenance of the family unit, independence from union restrictions upon foreign labour, potential social, and economic mobility – particularly for succeeding generations – and requiring only limited formal education and knowledge of English. However, in a host society that focused upon racial and cultural exclusivity, conflict did arise, particularly at times of economic downturn. In the early 1930s (during the Great Depression) for example, racial tensions emerged in business dealings between New South Wales Greek food caterers and the trade’s manufacturers and wholesalers. By the middle of the decade 40 leading Greek food caterers in the state formed the Combined Buying Association Pty Ltd. The company’s initial buying power was well over £100,000 a year. It was considered that, “the biggest manufacturer has to think when confronted with [these] traders”. Of course, racial verbal taunts and physical violence did take place intermittently − particularly during the first half of the 20th century. The fact that the culture and food Greeks chose to import and transmit to Australia via the Greek café was ‘modern American’ rather than ‘traditional Greek’ says much about the fascination and safety of American culture for Greeks in the age of a racially and culturally exclusive ‘White’ Australia.
For many Greek proprietors and their families, and their Greek employees, there were also other personal costs. Anna Cominakis (née Sofis/Sofianos), grew up in Barraba’s Monterey Café during the 1940s and 1950s and recalls: “The café was more a home than the house was – that was the life there [in the café]. I think the home was for sleeping. Mum spent more hours in the café [than at home]… as I got older I hated the café! It was just constant – seven days, seven nights.” Similarly, Evangelia Dascarolis (née Theodore/Theodorakis), whose family ran the Popular Café in Cootamundra in New South Wales recounts that “we never went on a family holiday… we rarely celebrated events—everyone had to work”. Katherine Paxinos’ family had the Red Spot Café in Port Adelaide, South Australia during the 1950s and 1960s. She also felt confined by her responsibilities to help run the café: “I wanted to be like the other young girls, but it was my duty to help.” With great sadness, tinged with bitterness and regret, Cecil Parris (Sophocle Perifanos) remembers his place in the Golden Gate Café, at Cowra in central-western New South Wales – “Sometimes I think I was conceived just so I would work behind the counter in the café, whether I liked it or not… once I could look over the counter and say, ‘Yes please’ – aged 12 – I started working in the shop. I never had the opportunity to ever be a teenager/ adolescent… I was thrust straight into an early adulthood.” Maria Sourrys (née Kastrissios) ran Sourrys’ Café in Hughenden (in north-eastern Queensland) with her husband George from the early 1940s until the early 1980s. She summarised decades of unceasing service tersely: “had nothing… worked hard.”
Chris Lourandos’ father, Nicholas, operated the Golden Bell Café in West Wyalong in the central west of New South Wales from 1926 through to 1962. Chris remembers that “during World War II we went to a Greek church in Sydney for Easter and I saw Dad cry… he was very proud to be Greek, and was sad about the way of life he had lost.”
Many Greeks generally perceived themselves to be ‘in’ Australia, but not ‘of’ it. Although they provided city and rural communities with ‘a local sense of community’, for the most part Greek café families were a socially and racially marginalised group: a fringe community existing along the outer social perimeter of the host society. Kiriaki Orfanos articulates well her family’s sociocultural relationship to the broader local community: “Our café was certainly central. It was the heart of the town – a place to meet. But we [my family] were really never part of it [town life]… we were peripheral to the whole thing… our café was visible, but we, as a family, were not.” During the 1930s and 1940s, for Archie Kalokerinos of the Paragon Café in Glen Innes, northern New South Wales, racist attitudes were also implied: “Looking back, Dad was never once invited inside the home of an Australian [British Australian], although he belonged to the Masonic Lodge and the bowling club.”
Some Greeks though, such as Jim Gavrilis—who ran the Elite Café in West Kempsey on the New South Wales north coast from 1948 until 1983—did feel accepted into the broader Australian community: “I was very friendly with the larrikins in Kempsey—larrikins, but good fellows… they were all locals… I found these people very friendly… I joined the swimming club… I was accepted and I was pleased about it… Some friends were Masons… [so] I joined the Masonic Lodge… I’m a life member of the swimming club. I was the chief timekeeper for 27 years!.. At times we [Greeks and British Australians] would all get on a bus and go to the beach for the day… we met some lovely people… in those days, we made some beautiful friends.”
The book is a companion publication to the authors’ touring exhibition ‘Selling an American Dream: Australia’s Greek Café’, which opened at the National Museum of Australia, Canberra, in 2008. The exhibition has continued to tour around the country ever since – a tribute to the popularity of the subject. Alexakis and Janiszewski hope that Greek Cafés and Milk Bars of Australia will potentially lead to another volume on the subject – particularly given the vast and diverse array of information at their disposal.
THE SOCIAL AND CULTURAL IMPACT OF GREEK CAFES AND MILK BARS
As part of the process of Americanisation during the 20th century, Greek cafés, and milk bars were powerhouses of change – they helped reshape Australia’s popular culture. Their story reveals some of the ‘cross-cultural transmissions and transformations’ upon the development of mainstream Australian culture and history. They were a ‘Trojan Horse’ for Americanisation, successfully instilling particular elements of American popular culture within a long-established British Australian cultural milieu—part of Australia’s cultural reshaping during the twentieth century away from British influences, towards those emerging from our powerful neighbour eastward across the vast Pacific.
Although the Greek café and milk bar is rapidly fading from this nation’s culinary landscape, its sociocultural legacy and influence remain, often almost inescapably, part of the daily lives of many Australians—when drinking a Coke or a flavoured milk, frequenting a fast food outlet, munching on a milk chocolate treat or ice cream at the movies, or singing and dancing along to the latest popular music hit.