Strathfield’s The Boulevarde is now the scene of intense rivalry. Two culinary entrepreneurs were struck by idea lightning at the same time, and via a series of doubtlessly hilarious coincidences, have ended up with their Korean BBQ restaurants side by side. Fortunately, they were also both lazy enough to leave some traces of the buildings’ former occupants up for us to find.

Gateway Travel and ‘estate agents’ are both scintillating hints, but what if we could actually go back in time and see how they looked? Well, thanks to the outdated technology of Google Street View, that’s exactly what we’re going to do. Buckle up, Marty:

And so we emerge in the distant past of 2009, a time when Gateway Travel and Richardson & Wrench ruled. Gateway looks like it had been there a long time, given the seven digit phone number at the top. The Zix & Co Real Estate sign suggests a time when two estate agents stood side by side, locked in bitter rivalry…not unlike today’s BBQ brothers. History is doomed to repeat itself.

One last curious feature of the Gateway building that gives us an insight into a past beyond even Google’s reach is this gargoyle:

Perhaps its fate as a BBQ restaurant was in the cards all along.