Burger joint/Under construction – Lilyfield, NSW
Image courtesy Andrea Cook
How common a sight is this? Even if we’re not living in the golden age of the take-away shop (and we really aren’t), you still can’t seem to swing a dead focaccia in Sydney’s suburbs without hitting one of these, or an ex-one of these.
For those readers too young (pfft, yeah right) to remember, let me take you back for a moment. In my day, you could go to these places called milk bars or take-aways, which were usually plastered in Coca-Cola advertising. Not Pepsi…never Pepsi.
Image courtesy Andrea Cook
They’d make hot food and keep it in these giant contraptions called bain maries, which made it impossible to tell how long it’d been there. Crucially, they were also trojan horses into the then-fledgeling world of ethnic food: Australians not open minded enough to actually go to a Greek restaurant might still have a souvlaki at their local take-away. Ingenious, really.
This particular take-away seems to have spent most of its early years as a residential property before taking the plunge into the deep-fry. The kind of fatty junk sold here probably filled the stomachs of the blue-collar workers who once populated the area, or the staff and patients of Callan Park Mental Hospital which is just across the road, but as times and tastes changed it was out with the milkshakes and schnitzels (mmm, together at last), and in with the coffee and rolls.
But let’s go back even earlier, shall we, to a time before deep fried food clogged Australia’s arteries…
Dubbo Liberal and Macquarie Advocate, 11 February 1939
You’d better believe Mrs. Cutting wasn’t serving up dim sims and Chiko rolls to her 50 guests. I wonder if Dubbo’s local papers still herald the homecoming of any travelling Dubbogan (Dubsider? Dubbocastrian?)
The celebrations didn’t last long, because by 1943 the Cuttings had cut loose, and the jocks were in.
As you can see, Mr. John Smith (dynamic name, no wonder he became Jock) lived right here in the mid-1940s while working as a labourer. SEE? I WASN’T MAKING ALL THAT UP ABOUT IT BEING BLUE COLLAR!
SMH 13 July 1949
Ahem. But once Jock’s labours were over, business became a little…mixed. A dynasty that would last over six decades began here for a measly 1500 pounds. I wonder if the take-away was making 140 pounds a week?
Google Street View, July 2014
As recently as last year, the newly minted Rozelle Coffee Lounge was still feeding the locals, but in a much harsher, more competitive environment. Go to Rozelle today and there are gourmet cafes on every corner, so the more meat-and-potatoes establishments face an uphill battle, and that’s probably why the Coffee Lounge isn’t around today.
Image courtesy Andrea Cook
As the suburb has become gentrified and all the blue collars have turned to ironic skivvies, there’s no longer any call for a place like this. The Coffee Lounge knew it, as it’s currently under construction, presumably transforming into something more suitable to today’s clientele.
I don’t know about you, but I’ll always find those Coca-Cola takeaways suitable. There’s something really…comforting about them. If you drive into a country town and things are looking unfamiliar and unsettling in a Deliverance kind of way, a place like this is all you need to soften the sound of the banjos.
Beverly Hills Squash Courts/Leisuredome Gym – Beverly Hills, NSW
Nestled in amongst the melting pot of businesses at Beverly Hills, the Leisuredome Gym has become a local institution since it opened in 1985.
The Leisuredome prides itself on being “one of the very few real gyms Sydney has to offer”, and I’d believe it. The exterior is unpretentious, lacking all the condescending trappings of the modern influx of gyms. What’s interesting is that the gym’s opening times – 6am-9:30pm Mon-Thur, 6am-9pm Fri, 9am-2pm Sat and 4pm-7pm Sun – seem to be frowned upon by a world of gym junkies spoiled by the new 24 hour centres. I can’t help but wonder if the more specific hours would translate into a more focused workout? But I digress…
The Pleasure Dome also prides itself on being able to “transform” bodies (presumably only for those who found enough keys), but it’s not just the beefcakes who underwent a transformation here…
If you go around the back (and why would you?) you’ll find a dirty little secret beyond Thunderdome:
That’s right, sometime before 1985, Beverly Hills’ squash courts felt the burn and pumped iron, turning from zero to hero in just six weeks or its money back. Meanwhile, anyone in need of a game of squash (I’m…almost certain they’re still out there) had to rack off to Roselands.
Can I just say, is there a more 70s sport than squash? It’s hard to know exactly when this squash court was built (but if you do, get in touch), but it’s safe to say it was around for the 1970s, an age when fashion at times took lessons from the squash scene, and squash itself was a fitness fad not unlike planking or zumba. Would this particular court have been a major player on the Sydney circuit? Were tournaments held here? Did hoop dreams live and die at this very location? It’s easy to imagine any number of marriages driven to the brink over a spirited game of doubles squash. Perhaps there are still bitter exes in the neighbourhood who still seethe when they spot the Leisuredome logo that disguised the secret location of their heartbreak…until now.
When the large, mysterious building next door was built, the sign was hidden from the world, and wasted away into its deplorable current state. To have a sign here at all suggests that once upon a time, this wall faced the world and attracted squash fans passing via either King Georges Road or the East Hills train line.
The ‘dome may have been flexing here for 30 years, but it may soon have some competition. Someone’s finally decided to put Large Mysterious Building to use, and I don’t think the location is a coincidence…
Pizza Hut/Moo-ers Steakhouse/For Lease – Long Jetty, NSW
When someone or something beloved is replaced, it’s not unusual for the usurper to find itself under fire, the subject of blistering scorn (and never moreso than right here on this blog). In the case of Moo-ers, a steakhouse up near The Entrance, it seemed like they picked the wrong shoes to fill.
In 2008, Moo-ers maa-nagement became concerned about the quality of meat they were receiving; hogget and mutton were being misrepresented as lamb, yearling as veal. The definition of beef cuts was being stretched by local suppliers; a shipment claiming to include sirloin, porterhouse and striploin cuts would be found to contain nothing but the one generic cut of beef. I wonder if this was happening with their seafood as well: shrimp instead of prawns, carp instead of everything else.
Moo-ers raised the issue with the Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Committee (SRARAATC *ahem* excuse me), hoping for tighter naming guidelines for meat. With most of their menu being meat, any substitution or downgrade in quality was hurting the Moo-ers brand.
Was anything ever done? Was the integrity of the Moo-ers menu salvaged? To answer those questions, cast your eyes upwards to the picture. Notice anything…for lease? My expert guess is that Moo-ers’ shipments of generic meat was in keeping with what the previous tenants had received. I mean seriously, if you can tell me what kind of “meat” the Pizza Hut “ground beef” is meant to be, then congratulations – there may be a spot for you on the SRARAATC.
Pizza Hut/Salvation Army – Liverpool, NSW
If there’s one goal that’s proven consistently hard to achieve, it’s covering up an eat-in Pizza Hut. There seem to be two typical approaches: the first is to make a genuine effort to alter the building and hope no one recognises. It doesn’t always work. The second is to just embrace the hallmarks of the former tenant wholeheartedly, and who better to breathe new life into someone’s sloppy seconds than the Salvos?
Inside, if you can look past the piles of instructional golf videos and copious amounts of Fifty Shades of Grey, it isn’t hard to spot the former Hut infrastructure that hasn’t already been sold off. Heck, someone probably walked away with the original oven for a bargain price, and I’m kicking myself right now that it wasn’t me.
Even the toilets have been put to a more hygienic use (but not by much) as change rooms. And no, I would not count among the highlights of my blogging career standing in the middle of a Salvation Army and taking a photo of its change rooms. It’s all for you, Damien.
When my generation returns to the earth and Pizza Hut’s eat-in legacy is forgotten, will people wonder why these buildings look so odd? Probably not.
Hamburger Joint/Residential – Eastwood, NSW
Once upon a time, this shop would have served the hamburger and hot chip needs of as many residents of Eastwood as could be bothered walking to it. These days, it’s easier to just go to the Macquarie Centre.
Situated along Balaclava Road (bal-A-KLAAAAR-VA, or buh-LACK-luvuh for our SA readers), it’s clear that this was one of those corner shops of yore, the kind that would require a visit every few days to stock up on such olden days essentials like sugar, lard and chicken feed. But as times changed, so did the shop’s offerings.
Above the roller-door of the former loading dock is a telltale sign boasting of hamburgers and hot chips, cunningly repurposed as…some kind of reverse sign. You can bet that when it opened, hamburgers and hot chips were probably just gleams in Fred Hamburger and Glenn ‘Hot’ Chipps’ eyes, but to stay alive in the corner shop game, you’ve gotta diversify.
By what looks like the late 90s or, at a stretch, early 2000s, the place was even supplementing its bread-and-butter milk supply with Ski yoghurt. With a Woolworths within 5km in every direction by this point, it was a desperate time calling for desperate measures. But even the combined deliciousness of Fruits of the Forest weren’t enough to reverse the fortunes of this store.
In the end, the big boys won, and this dangerous threat to their dominance and manhood was eliminated. Do you think Coles and Woolworths shared a beer over this death? Do you think they even noticed? Undeniably aware of the building’s deep-fried past, the current owners have decided to take it in a different direction – residential. Won’t Coles and Woolworths be pleased?
Past/Lives of the Near Future 