*This excerpt has been taken from A Journal for Greek Letters, Volume 11, 2003, Section two: Graeco-Australiana: California Dreaming; The ‘Greek Cafe’ and its role in the Americanisation of Australian Eating and Social Habits by Effy Alexakis and Leonard Janiszewski.
The country Greek cafe in Australia, which enjoyed a lengthy ‘golden age’ from the mid-1930s to the late-1960s, reflected its Hellenic legacy not in the food it served, but in terms of principal owner and main kitchen staff (Greek men who were traditionally familiar with the social and catering milieu of the Greek kafeneion), sometimes in its name (such as Marathon, Parthenon, Paragon, Olympia, Ellisos), and like the Greek kafeneion, it too became pre-eminent amongst the social focal points for eating, meeting and conversing within townships. The food which Greek cafes served expressed its British and American heritage.
Greek cafes provided British-Australians with their familiar meal of steak and eggs, chops and eggs, mixed grill, fish-and-chips, and meat pies, but more importantly, they cemented the growing popularisation of American food catering ideas which had been instigated through Australia’s earlier Greek-run food catering enterprises – the oyster saloon or ‘parlor’ (American spelling was usually used) of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the ‘American style’ soda bar/sundae ‘parlor’ which had appeared by the mid-1910s, and the ‘American style’ milk bar which had emerged by the early 1930s.
The introduction of American food catering ideas to Australia through the nation’s early Greek food caterers should not be surprising, given that quite a number of these Greeks had relatives and friends living and working in the United States, or had been there briefly themselves working for Greek-American food caterers – the United States remained a major drawer of Greek immigrants until the imposition of restrictions during the early 1920s. The Greek cafe was essentially an evolutionary amalgam of its three predecessors. In names such as the Niagara, Monterey, California, Astoria, Hollywood, New York, and Golden Gate, the American component of the Greek cafe’s creation is well suggested, but more so in its provision to customers of American sundaes, milkshakes, sodas and freezes or crushes, American confectionery (hard sugar candies and milk chocolate bars), and another popular product, American ice cream. Arguably, Greek cafes which adopted names such as Blue Bird, White Rose and Red Rose probably sought to advertise the cafe’s association with leading American-style confectionery brands; generally, such cafes also duplicated the logos of the brands. Similarly, some Greek cafes known as Peters & Co., or simply Peters Cafe, were possibly hoping to highlight their association with Peters’ American Delicacy Co. Ltd, and later Peters’ Arctic Delicacy Co. Ltd, popular ice cream manufacturing companies established in Australia by American born Frederick Augustus Bolles Peters.
Although the Greek cafe did not introduce traditional Greek dishes, as catering to the established tastes of their overwhelmingly British-Australian clientele was paramount, steak and eggs could be purchased with an ‘American Beauty’ fancy sundae for dessert, and a ‘Spider’ soda drink or flavoured milkshake to wash it all down. The union proved commercially successful and to a degree, the Greek cafe became a ‘Trojan Horse’ for the Americanisation of Australian eating habits well before the second-half of the twentieth century. Greek-run oyster ‘parlors’, soda bars/sundae ‘parlors’ and milk bars had pointed the way towards the successful merger between British-Australian preferred tastes, and American food catering ideas.
Greek-run oyster saloons or ‘parlors’ were pioneered by the Comino (Kominos) family (originally from the island of Kythera in Greece) in Sydney. Initially, these were fish-and-chip outlets, and although they maintained a focus on oysters (bottled and fresh), they soon acquired a wide diversity of foods (cooked meat and seafood, fruit and vegetables, chocolates and ice cream) which could be purchased at reasonable prices. As well as the provision of sit-down meals, some food items were also directed towards a take-away trade. These enterprises had men’s and women’s lounges and welcomed families. It can be contended that British-Australian run oyster saloons appear to have traditionally limited their food selection (almost exclusively to oysters), as well as their range of customers.
Whilst the diversification of the foods provided, together with the idea of attracting a broader range of clients, are suspected as possible American influences reflected by Greek-run oyster saloons, the introduction of the American soda fountain as well as American candy, ice cream and ice drinks (freezes or crushes) through these enterprises, is beyond doubt. Although the leading protagonists of the Comino family seem not to have had food catering experience in the United States, some members of the extended clan who arrived in Australia most certainly did, as well as a selection of other Greek proprietors of oyster ‘parlors’.
In 1912, three Greek migrants/settlers from the United States, Peter and Constantine Soulos and Anthony Louison (Iliopoulos), formed the Anglo-American Company in Sydney. Based upon the American drug store soda bar, the company’s shops (five by the mid-1910s) exposed Sydneysiders to the soda fountain – which created effervescent water through impregnation with a gas under pressure, to which flavours (mainly essences) were added, and if desired, ice cream. It has been claimed that around the same year, George Sklavos, a Greek shopkeeper in Brisbane’s inner city suburb of Fortitude Valley – who had spent some time in America – also procured a soda fountain.
Intriguingly, there is a further suggestion that both the Anglo-American Company and Sklavos may have well been preceded as the originators of the American soda fountain in Australia. Angelos Tarifas (apparently also referred to as Bouzos or Bourtzos, and later changing his surname to Burgess), yet another Greek who had been to the United States, is said to have installed a soda fountain in his Niagara Cafe in Newcastle, New South Wales, just before 1910. Despite this muddying of the waters as to which Greek-run enterprise had it first, the public appeal of the fountain was such that Greek oyster ‘parlor’ proprietors quickly incorporated the new food catering technology (compressors and pumps were imported from the United States – apparently, principally Chicago) and commenced producing a wide range of ‘exotically’ flavoured soda drinks in their establishments. Soda flavours included: pineapple, strawberry, ginger beer, banana, passionfruit, raspberry, kola, lime juice, orange, sarsaparilla, ginger ale, lemon and hop ale.
American ice cream sundaes also seem to have appeared around this time, with the titles of some unquestionably declaring their origin as being from across the Pacific: ‘American Beauty’, ‘Monterey Special’, ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy’ and ‘Mexican Banana Split’. Moreover, Greek-run oyster ‘parlors’ now began to evolve into soda bars/sundae ‘parlors’, whilst retaining the sit-down meals and diversity of foods of the oyster saloons.
Two decades after the founding of the Anglo-American Company, another enterprising Greek settler introduced Australians to a new American influenced food catering idea: the milk bar. Early in November 1932, Joachim Tavlaidis, known as Mick Adams, opened what many consider to be Australia’s first modern ‘American style’ milk bar, the ‘Black and White 4d. Milk Bar’ at 24 Martin Place, Sydney; the name Black and White was allegedly a sarcastic reference to a brand of whisky, as Adams was strongly opposed to the negative social and personal effects of alcohol abuse. Adams had previously been running a confectionery and soda fountain business on George Street in Sydney’s Haymarket, and while on a trip to the United States, according to his youngest daughter Lilian Keldoulis (nee Adams), ‘he… got the idea about the milk bar’. But he wanted to build his own milk bar which only sold milkshakes. A rapid stand-up trade in milkshakes became the successful commercial foundation of Adams’ original Black and White milk bar. Seating capacity in the premises was restricted to just six small two-seater cubicles along one wall, the main feature being a long hotel-style bar with soda fountain pumps and numerous milkshake makers (manufactured by the Hamilton Beach Company, in Racine, Wisconsin, USA).
No cooked meals were provided, only flavoured milkshakes, pure fruit juices and soda drinks (tea and coffee were introduced later).
Of the flavoured milkshakes on offer, two became quite popular: the banana milk cocktail, and ‘bootlegger punch’, the latter containing a dash of rum essence.
On the first day of opening, 5,000 customers are reported to have crowded into the milk bar, and as many as 27,000 per week then began to patronise the establishment. With milk being heavily promoted as a health food by both the New South Wales Board of Health and the state’s Milk Board, coupled with Adams’ impressive flair for publicity and the inexpensive four-penny cost of purchasing a milkshake, within five years there were allegedly 4,000 milk bars in Australia. It was observed at the time that most milk bar patrons (between 70 per cent and 95 per cent) were men, no doubt attracted, in part, by the bootlegger punch and its very affordable cost – the latter being particularly important during the Depression years. The traditional male-oriented Australian pub would have most certainly been affected by the milk bar’s incursion into its client numbers. Adams himself succeeded in establishing other Black and White milk bars in Brisbane, Melbourne, Adelaide, Wollongong and a second Sydney premises at Town Hall under ground railway station.
There is a local suggestion that Adams directly influenced the establishment of milk bars in England: “Mick gave a friend the idea, the recipes, the advice, and the friend went to London and opened the first milk bar in England”. Adams’ personal involvement currently cannot be clearly validated, however, a 1936 Confectioner’s Union publication in England, Service for Soda Fountains, Ice-cream parlours and Milk Bars, states:
‘The milk bar, so named, started in Sydney, NSW, and from that city spread rapidly to all parts of the Australian Commonwealth. The scheme was to sell in large quantities a milk drink, chilled and flavoured for 4d.’
What is evident, therefore, is that the emergence of milk bars in Britain followed its development in Australia, and that Adams’ original milk bar in Sydney’s Martin Place may indeed have been the world’s first.
While the country Greek cafe and its Greek-run predecessors must now be recognised as an important element in the development of popular Australian eating and social habits, it should also be acknowledged that their proprietors introduced Greek cuisine to Australia through the meals they did not serve, but ate privately.
The food tastes and smells of Australia’s Greek restaurants are now more familiar to Australians than the American Beauties and Spiders of an Australian food catering icon which is quickly fading from this country’s social culinary landscape: the Greek cafe.