It is believed that Australia’s first milkbar was opened in the early 1930s by a Greek immigrant known as Mick Adams (formally Joachim Tavlaridis). He opened The Black and White Milkbar in Sydney’s Martin Place in quiet protest against the overconsumption of alcohol in Australia. Adams wished to offer a ‘soft’ option — a bar that provided lighter refreshments and specialised in milkshakes instead of booze. He may well have been disappointed to learn that some milkbars in fact became a way for people to gain access to bootleg liquor, which was then added to the milkshakes to make cocktails! His business, apparently inspired by the American-style drugstores that contained soda fountains and sundae parlours, was so extremely popular that 4000 more milkbars, mostly Greek run, are reported to have sprung up within the next five years. It is suggested that the milkbar may also have been inspired by the ‘galactopoleion’, a traditional Greek shop that specialised in the sale of milk products. The first milkbar was opened in the United Kingdom a few years later by a friend of Adams, and shared the same name, aesthetic and recipes as The Black and White.

By the 1970s, the prime years of my childhood, you could locate a milkbar in almost any local town or village across the land by simply finding the main drag and listening out for the hum of the refrigerator cabinet. Over the years, as convenience stores and fast-food outlets bulldozed into our worlds, the humble milkbar faded into the background.

A true milkbar is a rarity these days. Believe me, I’ve been looking for them. It seems that many of those that did somehow limp into this decade have only recently been pulled down to make way for progress. The handful of dinky-di milkbars that do remain tend to be in country towns or quieter suburbs, and even those just don’t feel the same anymore — with much competition, they tend to be a shell of their former selves, and should be given an authentic makeover and heritage listed as far as I’m concerned!

The milkbar had everything a child could wish for. We didn’t want much — it was the simple things. A visit for takeaway burgers and chips on a Friday night after mum and dad finished work and were too tired to cook was an adventure! Milkbars were pretty much the only shop you could guarantee would throw open the doors on the weekend when trading was permitted, and for a kid growing up in those times that was pretty exciting — and terribly important too. In the searing heat of a Sydney summer, when my brother and I could barely walk up the steep hill to our local shops, we did so, dragging our little bodies under a scorching sun, knowing we’d find sweet relief at the milkbar. Then we’d burn off the sugar high with a run under the sprinkler.

As a teenager, the milkbar was just as important. It sustained us with portable treats for dawn-until-dusk beach days in the summer holidays, and was an inadvertent meeting place for boys and girls — a glance in our direction from a group of young surfers playing the ‘pinnies’ was enough to send us into blushing fits of giggles. While the tough kids were smoking ciggies (there were always ashtrays in the milkbar), some of us thought we were just as cool by pretending to smoke lolly cigarettes, or slater-coloured vanilla cigars, or practising our bubble gum blowing technique.

As a surfer, football player and a travelling sales rep, my dad knew every milkbar from the city to the most northern tip of Sydney, and he wasn’t shy about sharing his knowledge. He knew which one whizzed up the best shakes, who grilled the tastiest burgers, and who used the sweetest fruit in their pineapple crush.

Photography © Jane Lawson