The Hartee’s Saga, Part II – Canterbury, NSW
Continued from Part I…
In 1971, McDonald’s opened their first Australian restaurant at Yagoona in Sydney’s southwest. Hartee’s, as Sydney’s resident hamburger chain, returned fire by opening no less than four locations in 1972, eclipsing McDonald’s store count. Of those four, Liverpool, Canterbury, Manly Vale and Kogarah, only the Canterbury store still exists in any form:
The building still features the drive-thru lane and original roof, but apart from that nothing remains of Hartee’s. Seeing as McDonald’s didn’t open a drive-thru location until 1978, at Warrawong, this suggests that Hartee’s were Australian pioneers of the drive-thru service style. This domination of Sydney’s hamburger market continued into 1973, with locations opening at Moore Park Showground and Riverwood, while business was so good that the head office was moved from Earlwood to Mascot. By the end of 1973, Hartee’s sat comfortably at the top of Sydney’s fast food chain…
Homestead Golden Chicken/Chicken Express/Laytani Cafe – Enfield, NSW
The owners of the Laytani Cafe in Enfield informed me that before they moved in three years ago, this address was a Chicken Express. I’m sure it was, but it was definitely another Homestead Chicken location as well. How can I be so sure?
The driveway retains the green paint scheme used by both Chicken Express and Homestead Chicken, so I’ll admit it’s not the most definitive evidence…but this is:
SMH, Oct 4 1973.
The Hartee’s Saga, Part I – Earlwood, NSW
Australia’s experiences with American-style fast food started during the Second World War. Visiting American GIs helped the relatively young nation get a taste for hamburgers with cheese and fried chicken, while the influx of immigrants to the country introduced exotic food such as the souvlaki, pizza and kebabs. The major fast food franchises of today had all originated in the USA in the 1940s and 50s, and while Australia had been content thus far to survive on meat pies, milk bars and Chinese restaurants for take away treats, the 1960s ushered in a new wave. The fast food empires saw Australia as prime territory. Kentucky Fried Chicken was first to move in, establishing its first Australian store at Guildford in Sydney’s west in 1968. Pizza Hut opened its first store in Belfield in April, 1970. In that same year, amid the American invasion, the first major Australian-owned fast food franchise opened its store in Earlwood, NSW.
The first Hartees, now The Chicken Coop, Earlwood.
Seizing on the absence of hamburger franchises thus far in Australia (McDonalds would open their first location in 1971), Kellogg Food Products Pty. Ltd. had made an agreement with the American Hardee’s chain of hamburger restaurants to create ‘Hartee’s’, an American-style burgers-‘n-fries restaurant franchise. The first Hartee’s opened here, on the corner of Homer Street and Joy Ave in Earlwood, with the take-away shop below and the head office above. Unlike many other Australian attempts to emulate the American fast food experience, Hartee’s was a success – TV and radio carried the jingle “Hurry on down to Hartee’s, where the burgers are barbecued!”. Kelloggs planned for over 100 Hartee’s locations in Australia and New Zealand, but it didn’t quite work out that way…
Pizza Hut/Olsens Funerals – Revesby, NSW
Continuing in the series of Pizza Hut restaurants around Sydney, today we find Revesby’s former Pizza Hut restaurant converted into an Olsens funeral home. Pizza Hut would have closed around 1999, so this has been there for awhile. The roof is starting to lose its green, with the former red paint clearly visible from the street. So too the door handle:
As we’ll soon discover as we continue exploring the repurposing of old Pizza Huts, this one is up there with the strangest. I wonder if they kept the oven?
Homestead Golden Fried Chicken/Kentucky Fried Chicken/Hire One – Hurstville, NSW
Homestead Golden Fried Chicken, 1986. Image by Hurstville Council.
It’s hard to tell, but the above picture is the only photograph I could find of West Hurstville’s Homestead Chicken restaurant on the corner of Forest Road and Gloucester Road.
WATERMARKED UPDATE: Thanks to readers Chris and Jade, a photo of Hurstville Homestead in its glory days has been located via Hurstville Library! And you know what that means…watermarks. Enjoy:
Homestead Chicken, Hurstville, 1987. Image courtesy Hurstville Library (in case you weren’t sure).
Homestead sold a variety of KFC-esque chicken products, and had a number of locations around south Sydney. This one seems to have been custom built in 1986 (it does not appear in a 1985 overhead photo), closed around 1990, and was replaced and refitted by…
KFC, West Hurstville, 2009. Image by museumofinanity, Flickr.
The Kentucky Fried Chicken (are we still calling it that?) stood here until 2009, when this happened. The problems must have been bad enough to dissuade all potential buyers hoping to use the site as a restaurant, which brings us to today.
Hire One, 2012.
This must be Sydney’s third equpiment hire place with drive thru facilities, after the Kennards at Padstow and Complete Hire at Canterbury. Homestead Chicken was unique for its particularly odd drive thru mechanism, which is still in place:
This served as a kind of dumbwaiter, with the customer putting their payment in a tray that was then lifted up and into the restaurant. The food would be delivered the same way. Perhaps ironically, this relatively hands-free system was intended to be more hygienic.
Past/Lives of the Near Future 
