Fat Pizza/For Sale – Chullora, NSW
Given the success of his new comedy series Housos (with a movie, Housos vs. Authority, released earlier this month), Sydney filmmaker Paul Fenech probably doesn’t spend much time thinking about this place anymore. In 2000, Fenech launched Pizza, a sitcom set in the world of pizza delivery in southwest Sydney.
The Pizza crew.
A big hit at a time when Australian television comedy was in dire straits, Pizza acted as a kind of modern Acropolis Now, and its unique approach of challenging ethnic stereotypes through very black comedy was able to sustain a five series run which ended in 2007, and its own movie, Fat Pizza, in 2003.
Located along the Hume Highway at Chullora, this low-key pizza restaurant provided the backdrop to the mayhem of the show. Since Pizza ended, the shop has sat dormant, although for much of the period between 2000 and about 2009 it operated as an actual pizzeria, reopening earlier this year after a long period of disuse…before closing again soon after. During its last era, the walls were adorned with Pizza memorabilia, making it a kind of Planet Hollywood for southwest Sydney. It’s likely it was an operating restaurant before Fenech and the Pizza crew made it their filming location – the row of shops it’s a part of is absolutely ancient.
The shop was recently purchased after having been on the market for some time. The interior’s been gutted, making the likelihood of any kind of Pizza revival here pretty unlikely. But who knows, perhaps it’s being prepared for a sixth series? It’s unknown whether Fenech’s team owned the restaurant during Pizza‘s run, but either way, they wouldn’t own it anymore. For a long time, it seemed that this little pizzeria in Chullora was as far west of Sydney Australian television was willing to go, but the success of Pizza made it possible for shows like Fenech’s Housos to further highlight the ‘inconvenient frontier’ that is western Sydney.
Ever get the feeling you’re being…watched?
Speaking of which, if you’re starting a security company, a surefire way to NOT intimidate anyone would be to name it the Australian Watching Co. The AWC protects the block Fat Pizza is located on (or it did a hundred years ago). Uh-oh…I think we’re being WATCHED! Here’s an interesting aside completely unrelated to Pizza: the Australian Watching Company was formed shortly after the First World War (I knew it), and in 1992 was acquired by Chubb. Now it goes under the name Southern Cross Protection – but clearly not South Western Cross Protection.
Penshurst Theatre/IGA – Penshurst, NSW
Sometimes, places of historical interest may be buried in the most unlikely, mundane places – and it doesn’t get much more mundane than IGA.
Penhurst IGA, and the Punchy’s Gym that sits above it, may not look like much, but in 1925 this was the site of the newly opened Nash’s Penshurst Theatre. C’mon, look again and tell me you can’t see the resemblance. Let me just say it’s been extremely hard to find anything at all on this theatre, other than that it was owned by a Mr. W Nash, opened in 1925 and stayed open until at least 1954. At some point it was closed and transformed into the building that exists today. While it’s not immediately identifiable as the theatre, if you look closely you can see that the same basic frontage is there (albeit crimped), and the IGA is certainly big enough. Anyway, as we know, stranger things have happened. As always, if you know more, please let Past/Lives know.
One interesting anecdote: in 1932, the Penshurst Theatre was taken to court by Raycophone, a Sydney-based company (with a factory in Annandale) which manufactured speakers and amplifiers for motion picture theatres.
Image courtesy audioheritage.org
Allegedly, Penshurst Theatre thrashed the Raycophone ‘talking picture sound reproducing equipment’ they hired, and returned them in unsatisfactory condition. Scandalous! Even worse was that in their defence, PT claimed that they’d received the equipment in that poor condition. I know that today we have DTS and THX surround sound and all that, but seriously, how hard must Nash have been cranking the likes of Shanghai Express, Scarface or Red Dust to blow the speakers off their Raycophone? Dudes were wild back then.
Massive thank you to reader Carmen for the picture of Penshurst Theatre, and to reader Shaun for the hot tip in the first place!
Liberty Service Station/Sold – Riverwood, NSW
In its heyday, the Liberty budget-priced service station chain offered freedom from the high prices gouged by the big boys of the industry. Today, this Liberty offers freedom from any prices.
Liberty came from the old-school of servos, where workshops were par for the course. They were service stations after all, and not just because they used to fill your car up for you.
Liberty service stations are actually the modern day incarnation of the Solo service stations of the 1970s and 80s. Liberty began life as Solo in 1974, and became the largest independent servo brand in Australia. The Solo chain was part of the ACTU’s efforts in the 70s to bring about a discount retail revolution. In 1975, Solo teamed up with the ACTU to bring prices down in Victoria, leading to a 17c per litre difference in fuel prices between Victoria and NSW (imagine the fury in Albury-Wodonga). Solo’s discount revolution didn’t hit NSW until 1977, due to staunch opposition from a terrified Transport Workers Union, which feared that discount petrol would lead to mass sackings of fuel tanker drivers. Servo owners also rallied against the introduction of the discount chain, but to no avail. The first NSW Solo opened in 1977 in the then-still recovering Bold Street, Granville. Just think, all that effort and struggle to regulate and cut fuel prices, only to end up in the situation we’re in today. It’s pretty sad.
Solo was bought out by Ampol in 1989 (and didn’t that end well), and in 1995, Solo’s creators started Liberty ‘in the spirit of’ Solo. It’s alleged that they’re still going today, although from this mess you wouldn’t know it. You’d hope that Liberty head office had more confidence in the other locations than they had in this one.
Dynamic Marketing & Printing/All-Starz Performing Arts Studio – Peakhurst, NSW
If you’re anything like me, you’d find yourself wondering what purpose a series of superconductors and satellite equipment would serve atop the All-Starz Performing Arts Studio, on Henry Lawson Drive at Peakhurst. Wonder no more.
Once upon a time, this building played host to a company called Dynamic Marketing, which produced several series of trading cards back in the 1990s. Yes, only in the 90s was the global financial situation decadent enough to allow a company to receive the bulk of its income via licenced trading cards. The company was such a product of that decade that it even managed to have a token happy mascot, a smiling sun-lightbulby looking dude. Pretty sure he’s giving the finger.
Batman, Disney, the Phantom all received Dynamic sets, with the NRL being the crown jewel in the Dynamic empire. In a time when American cards like Fleer, Upper Deck and Topps were dominating the market, it was pretty incredible that Dynamic made the impact that they did. Shrewd licence choices and well-made cards were among the things they did right. (Things Dynamic did wrong: a set of cards based on the Super Mario Bros. movie.) I like to think all the folderol on the roof was for setting up crucial cross-global meetings on futuristic video-phones, with hotlines between Dynamic and Warner Bros., Disney and… David Gallop. C’mon, use your imaginations!
Dynamic magically went bust in the late 90s, a time when trading cards themselves were on their way out. It’s as if Dynamic knew something we didn’t, and as we the public sat around anxiously awaiting the next set of NRL cards complete with holoblast foil inserts (1:60 packs), Dynamic were cleaning house, severing all the fibre-optic cables attached to the faxes, and taking axes to their hard drives. Today, the All-Starz Performing Arts Studio has attempted to paint the equipment the same colour as the building so as to make it less conspicuous, but we Dynamic faithful know the truth.
UPDATE: Reader Martin says that before Dynamic occupied this location, it was home to the ill-fated Catco Developments. Catco went bust in 1987, a collapse that had a severe effect on the tradies, subbies and builders of the day.
DYNAMIC UPDATE: Reader Ken has reminded me of Scanlens, Dynamic’s cardmaking predecessor. Between 1963 and 1990, Scanlens produced various series of sports cards, focusing on the AFL and NRL. They also made several non-sports series, but these weren’t the bread and butter. Scanlens cards also came with gum, which in a time before foil-embossed noctovision inserts were the biggest treat in every pack. It’s interesting that Scanlens stopped producing cards only a year before Dynamic’s first set, ‘Attack of the Dinosaurs’, was released. It should also be noted that Scanlens didn’t operate out of this address, just in case you had the wrong idea.
British General Electric Company/Encore Sewing/Residential – Camperdown, NSW
Picture this: a suburban street full of small terrace houses…and then suddenly, this behemoth.
SMH, 26 Dec 1951
In the 1950s, it was home to British General Electric, manufacturer of consumer electronics that spent the war years making radios and lamps for the war effort. Through a series of mergers, British Electric found itself far removed from the consumer electronic market that it had built its reputation on, and it fell out of favour in the Australian market (along with all things British) in the early 1960s. At that time, Encore Sewing took the stage.
I can’t begin to explain the world of sewing and the fascination it held for so many throughout the 60s and 70s, but through another series of mergers, Encore was eventually engulfed by the Singer empire. As everyone knows, if you leave a heritage former industrial building unattended in Sydney’s Inner West, it’s gonna get occupied FAST. These days it’s residential, or ‘a creative space’ in the carefully chosen words of the building’s real estate agent. The biggest mystery is what the sign below Encore Sewing said. I look at these kinds of things all the time and even I’m stumped. If you know more, feel free to share.
Past/Lives of the Near Future 