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.
Video Craze/Network Video – Penshurst, NSW
Video Craze at Penshurst appears to have started off with good intentions, but you know a video shop is on its way out once it gets absorbed by a chain.
In this case, the madness was quelled by Network Video. Even though the sign boasts that the shop is now ‘double the size’, half of the shop is currently a used book store. Also, take another look at that sign. “Free movies”? No wonder they got taken over.
Windsor Theatre/Mytilenian House – Canterbury, NSW
Canterbury's Windsor Theatre, 1981. Courtesy Barry Sharp and City of Canterbury Local History Photograph Collection.
Since 1938, this theatre has sat on the bank of the Cooks River, Canterbury. Originally called the Windsor Theatre, its proximity to the water made it prone to flooding and also, apparently, prone to thievery. The theatre suffered two safecrackings in the 1940s alone, a problem that doesn’t seem to have been experienced by its current tenants. The Windsor closed in 1981…
Mytilenian House, 2012.
…and was converted in 1982 into Mytilenian House, a meeting place for the Mytilenian Brotherhood, which itself was established in 1925. They’ve kept the screen area relatively intact:
I’m guessing they upgraded the safe, especially if the security around the back is anything to go by:
Robbos Spares/Lightsounds – Campsie, NSW
Image by Andrew Martyn.
This Canterbury Road address may be called Lightsounds now, but the sign above it still features the bizarre mascot of Robbos(sic) Spares, a spare car parts company. According to Robbos’s stunning website, Robbos set up shop here in 1984.
Robbos Spares, Canterbury Road Campsie, 2010. Image from Robbos.com.
By now you’ve got that feeling like the word Robbos doesn’t make sense anymore, don’t you? Or is it just me?
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?
Past/Lives of the Near Future 
