Even as the cranes of development encroach upon Burwood Road, the clogged vein that runs between the Hume and Parramatta arteries, it’s still possible to find hints of the past. For example, here we have the Burwood Fruit Bowl, run by the Giuffre brothers.

According to the can’t-believe-it-exists Sydney’s Italian Fruit Shops dot com, a Carlo Giuffre managed a fruit shop on Burwood Road from 1910-1916 before leaving the country in 1918. Repeat: that was his reaction in 1918! Imagine if he saw Burwood Road now! Sands directories from 1908-1912 mention a Giuffre Bros fruiterer in the Newtown area, but no word on whether they employed their clever-once shop name a second time. Whether his brother stuck around and kept the shop going is also unknown, but it certainly requires a hefty suspension of disbelief to imagine this was the 1916 shopfront.

The font used in today’s vintage shopfront signage to me seems very 20s, and certainly striking enough to keep around…at least until the bulldozers get to work. Until that time, the Chen Guang Variety Shop provides Burwegians (c’mon, give me that one) with all the junk they’ll ever need, while the neighbouring Burwood Fruit Market fills the street’s Giuffre-shaped void with fruit as blandly efficient as the shop’s name.