‘Every time you drink a Coke, enjoy a milk shake, ice cream or milk chocolate treat, or go to the cinema, or listen to the latest popular music hit, you can thank Australia’s Greek settlers’.

This is what made documentary photographer Effy Alexakis and historian Leonard Janiszewski explore Australia’s Greek café phenomenon.

The two put together a unique touring photographic exhibition which begins its journey from The Redciffe Museum in Queensland (75 Anzac Ave) on Thursday 3 September and will be on display for a full three months, until Sunday 29 November 2015.

The exhibition’s theme – Australia’s Greek cafés and milk bars – is a significant, influential element in the development of this nation’s popular culture during the twentieth century.

Curators Alexakis and Janiszewski cleverly utilised a revealing interplay of historical and contemporary photographs back in 2008 for the National Museum of Australia.

Since then, their photographic archives have been constantly growing, married to extended oral history captions, and overlaid by a dramatic multimedia presentation created by filmmaker Michael Karris, to present a social history exhibition that has powerfully resonated with audiences across the country.

Prior to the explosion of American fast-food franchises, Greek cafés contributed to a major change in Australian eating habits.

Alexakis’ stunning photographs capture the decor of the cafés, their customers and the owners who worked hard to make their businesses successful – not only affecting eating habits but also cinema, music and architecture.

Even throughout most of the twentieth century, Australia’s Greek cafés were powerhouses generating unprecedented social and cultural change.

The exhibition will especially focus upon Greek cafés and milk bars in Queensland – both within cities and the state’s rural settlements, which as in New South Wales – evidenced a significant Kytherian presence for most of the twentieth century.

For more information visit www.moretonbay.qld.gov.au/redcliffe-museum or phone 07 3883 1898.