In 1910, when the railway reached Kyogle, Theo came across from Murwillumbah and opened a confectionery shop and ice-cream parlour in partnership with his newly arrived sister Anthee who, in 1916, aged 16, married Antonio Cordatos in Casino, leaving Theo, and by then his brother Peter, to carry on. 

Having learnt from the experience of the two previous Greek attempts, it appears that they never attempted to open a classic Greek oyster saloon, at least initially. A bloke named W. Hoffman dominated this more substantial trade with a large two-storey establishment incorporating its own refreshment rooms, fruit shop, bakery with specialist pastry cooks, and a host of general catering facilities.

The railway had accelerated growth and just before the war the Kyogle population had reached 1000, with about 3000 in the surrounding district engaged in milking cows and chopping down trees. In 1915 the biggest drought on record hit the district, which no doubt affected business and forced Peter’s move to Murwillumbah. At the same time Theo and Anthe must have moved temporarily to Dubbo, as in 1915 he was recorded as a member of that town’s winning rugby league team. Whether the business was leased in the interim is uncertain, but Theo and Anthee were back behind the counter in Kyogle in 1916. Earlier, in 1912, he must also have taken some time off to play Rugby Union, as that year he represented NSW against QLD, at the same time winning the QLD Wrestling Championship.

He left town in early 1918, just before Kyogle’s pioneering wood veneer industry started to stimulate more growth, and moved to Brisbane for a few months before ending up in Dubbo. Whether he sold the business or walked away from it is unclear, although there’s a suspicion he may have been burnt out. He spent seven years in Dubbo before moving to Sydney in 1925 and taking up employment with Aroney Bros in George Street. His brother Peter, who all up had spent ~3yrs in Murbah and ~5yrs in Kyogle, had established a ham and beef shop in Sydney around 1920 and became foundation Vice-President of the Kytherian Brotherhood of Australia in 1922.

On the 21May1919 The Kyogle Examiner records that “The undersigned wish to announce that they have purchased the business lately conducted by Mr. L. Brown. The business will remain closed for a fortnight during alterations, when the firm will open with a large and fresh stock of fruit and confectionery. Fresh fish and meals at all hours.
                                                 Malano & Peter"

The proprietors were the Kytherians George Ioannis Malanos and Peter Nickolas Megaloconomos (Conomos) who had been trading together at Coraki for the previous couple of years.

While they began trading together from Laurie Brown’s bakery, tea rooms and soda fountain shop, renaming the place The Richmond Café, it seems George split from Peter in about 1921/22 and wandered off to Nimbin to open a branch office, possibly remaining a silent partner in the Kyogle enterprise until at least 1930.

Peter Conomos, born in Milopotamos in 1900, had landed as an 11yr old and worked as a messenger boy in Sydney until going to Coraki sometime during the war. Family folklore has it that as a young lad he had gone to Egypt with a brother, perhaps making the acquaintance of Theo Vangis, another Egypt and Coraki identity. A little after George left for Nimbin Peter began trading as Peters Richmond Cafe and, in 1922, at the time of purchase of a second café, as Peter & Co Cafe, but shortly afterwards and finally as Peters & Co, the same trade name Malano had used whilst in partnership with his brother-in-law, Peter Glitsos/Gleeson, at Coffs Harbour until moving to Coraki in ~mid1917. 

The second outlet was the ex-home of Mrs Jolly’s tea room and confectionery shop, one door down from their existing business where Birkbeck’s Menswear shop now stands. The place was renamed the Golden Star Sundae Shop and boasted in its opening adverts that it was fully equipped with electric fans, concomitant with the launch of Kyogle's Electricity Undertaking. They had a successful first day’s trading and donated the takings, £55, to the Kyogle Hospital Fund.

The Golden Star was placed in the managerial hands of Jim John Coroneo and about a year or so later he became a full partner, presumably after some machinations with Malano's holding. Jimmy landed in 1914, aged 13, and went to Inverell where the White Australia Cafe had just opened. After completing his apprenticeship he spent some time at Casino prior to coming to Kyogle in late 1921, allegedly with his brother Angelo, and joining the partnership in Jan22. Angelo died in late 1924, about the time of the arrival of his brother and sister, 16yr old Peter and 18yr old Anna. And then in 1926, the year Anna married Peter Nick Crethary at Glen Innes, the last brother, 13yr old Leo (Manolaros), turned up. 

On Christmas day 1926 both the Cafe and Sundae Shop, along with 13 other buildings, went up in smoke. This was the worst fire in the history of Kyogle and razed all these buildings on the western side of Main Street south of Geneva Street up to and including the Commercial Hotel, leaving a damage bill of over £100,000. Peters & Co erected a temporary cafe on the southeast corner of Main and Geneva Streets, on the corner block still vacant after the earlier 1919 fire, where they carried on business until their new premises were completed eleven months later, by which time Efstratios Emmanuel Glytzos/Glitsos (Stan Gleeson) had become a partner.

Stan was 23yrs old when he landed in late 1924, spending about 4mths in Sydney followed by a 12mth stint with the Mellitos Bros at Binnaway, near Coonabarabran, before coming to Kyogle in mid 1926, apparently with sufficient funds to buy into the Conomo/Coroneos partnership, although he may have been staked by a family member, many of whom were around the place by this time. His cousins, the pub owning Gleesons of Coffs Harbour and Urunga landed in 1908, while his uncle, Peter Stan Gleeson, landed in 1910 and after periods in Lismore, Sydney and Barraba, based himself in Brisbane sometime during the war. Stan’s older brother, Dimitri, had landed in early 1924, coming to Kyogle 6mths later. He was never in the partnership, remaining as a cook for Peters & Co through to his death in Kyogle in 1972.

Kyogle – Consolidating

In January 1927, a month after the fire, the partnership managed to cobble together £2640 to purchase the block on which the Richmond Café had stood and a few months later commissioned an architect to build them a giant new edifice. The new brick building, an elaborate art decor establishment with three shop fronts across a substantial 66ft frontage and a residence above, was opened with a competition to rename the new combined restaurant/cafe, with a prize of £10 for the best suggestion. The winner was ‘The Fairymount’, the name of the original squatting run in the Kyogle district. But whilst this became the official name, the cafe continued to be known as Peters by the locals and a giant sign on the second storey proclaimed it as such. Nevertheless, a compromise was reached; immortalised on the footpath in front of the building are the names PETERS and FAIRYMOUNT, set in large brass letters to denote the men only cafe and the more ‘exclusive’ dining room respectively. For the rest of his life Stan policed the dining room with great rigor, emulating Angelo Crethar of Lismore by barring anyone who didn’t meet his high dress standards and often rejecting any male not accompanied by a lady. The new building was opened on 1st December 1927, festivities culminating in a dance in the café that lasted into the wee hours. The day and night’s takings were donated to the Kyogle Memorial Hospital and the Country Women's Association Rest Room Fund, practices that continued through the years.

Stan's father, Emmanuel, had migrated to Smyrna from Kythera in the early 1890s and, except for a short sojourn in Athens, where Stan was born in 1901, remained there for the rest of his life. Kytherians had been migrating to Smyrna since the 1700s so much so that a well-established quarter of the city was called Tsirigotika, a clan name adopted by many who were subsequently forced out. (To this day Kythera is still known alternatively as Cerigo/Tsirigo, a name bestowed by the Venetians in 1717.) Just prior to the slaughter and destruction in Smyrna in 1922 there were 25,000 people there claiming Kytherian descent, most of whom had access to the superior schools and opportunities not available to their home island compatriots. Stan however, was schooled in Athens and became a well-educated bloke fluent in five languages. Upon return to Smyrna he was drafted into the army, rising to sergeant major before being captured by the Turks and imprisoned, where his skills as an interpreter made him a leading figure amongst the POWs. His brother Dimitri also served against the Turks during WW1 and afterwards.

Their circumstances thereafter were fraught with peril as turmoil engulfed Smyrna. Their parents and brother Con, a soldier in the Greek expeditionary army in Asia Minor, were amongst the first to die in the bloodbath after the Turks moved on Smyrna. During the chaos and confusion that followed, Stan, having sussed the self-interest of the POW camp commandant, was able to buy his freedom by handing over the bulk of his father’s buried gold horde. Retaining ten sovereigns for himself he was eventually able to get on board a boat heading to Egypt where he was fortunate in meeting up with Dimitri who had managed to get out a little earlier. In Port Said they meet up with a cousin from Kythera, Stephanos George Gletsos, and in 1924 the three were able to secure separate passages on boats to Australia, Stephanos arriving with Zafiro Jim Crethar of Lismore. The only other family member to survive was their nephew Manuel.

Stan’s adoption of the name Gleeson was due to his cousins, Nick and Peter Glytsos, from Kypriotianika on Kythera, who had established themselves as Peters & Co at Bellingen before WW1 and saw the wisdom of anglicising the name after experiencing the excessive wog and dago baiting of the times. It’s likely that Stan called in on them on his way north and possibly was staked by them to acquire his share in the Kyogle partnership.

Meanwhile some Greek competition had arrived in town. Around mid 1927 Emmanuel Harry Andronicos came from Lismore to acquire what looks like the café/fruit shop of the Chinaman, Kong Young, although it could have been the short-lived venture of Jack Panaretto. In Sep1926 Jack, Lismore's man-about-town, was given a farewell party at the Iveli residence in Carrington Street, at which 'fifty guests were present, and an enjoyable time was spent in dancing, games, and vocal and instrumental items...,' and Jack spoke of his excitement to 'enter business on his own account at Kyogle....' But no record can be found of his presence here. Whatever the circumstances, Manuel revamped the place into the Neptune Fish and Oyster Saloon, but, possibly like Jack, doesn’t seem to have made a go of it, quietly leaving town in late 1928, although he was still being sued in mid 1930 by the fruit and veggie wholesaler of Lismore, Paul Coronakes, over outstanding bills. Thereafter Peters & Co had the place to themselves until Alex Dimitri Samios (Foundas) turned up in 1935 to build the Cabaret Cafe.

By early 1928 the rebuilding of Kyogle had been completed, with a new Norco factory amongst other things, and a rosy future looked assured, in contrast to economic fears around the rest of the region. In 1926 the railway line from Kyogle through to Brisbane got underway, although it had a bumpy start with frequent financing delays, but eventually attracting Commonwealth money, marking the Fed’s first ever foray into the railway business. The announcement of the project had attracted unemployed from all over the place and the delay in getting started was causing great distress. By mid 1926, when the first sod was turned at Kyogle to mark the official commencement of the project, over 200 blokes, sleeping in tents and under bridges, were nearing starvation. Nevertheless, things picked up, particularly after 1928, and gave the district a huge economic flow-on. Seventeen large camps, mainly tents but with boarding houses following, were set up along the line and housed around 1500 people through to the project’s completion in 1930. The concomitant demand for carriers, teamsters, horse yards, garbage collectors, butchers, bakers, dentists, doctors, hawkers, milkmen, tradesmen, quarry workers, sleeper cutters, boarding house operators and a host of other service providers had a knock-on effect throughout the whole shire and gave the business houses of Kyogle cause for much rejoicing.

The hundreds of navvies and support staff transiting thru gave a ready-made captive clientele to Peters & Co, and over the years the restaurant did a roaring trade providing breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks in-between to these blokes, so much so that at its peak the Fairymount had a staff of twenty working in shifts. (At Cougal, the largest camp, the population peaked at 1000 and gave rise to a school, various stores, a mercers shop, barbers, refreshment rooms, billiard rooms, bakers, a post office, police station, public hall, ply mill and a base for many carriers whose business boomed through carting steel, rivets, timber, gravel, sand, cement, horse feed, rails, girders and general provisions. The Tunnel through the main section of the McPherson Range, a great engineering feat, employed about 600 men directly and many more from the wider vicinity.) Provision of services and commodities also flowed on to most towns in the region, Byron Bay, for instance, providing all the sand. By the time of the official opening on 27Sep1930, £4,791,952 had been expended on the line thru to Grafton. And the opening of the Grafton bridge on 8May1932 gave a single gauge run from Sydney to Brisbane, cutting 6hrs off the old two-gauge route through Tenterfield and Wallangarra. 

It was Casino however, that had to wear the aftermath, the navvies making the place their resort-of-choice where they rode out the Depression in the forlorn hope of more railway work. But Kyogle too, had to do a little penance for the good times - in late Jan1931 Peters & Co dismissed all employees 'owing to depression' and the two proprietors worked like one-armed paper hangers running the place themselves for a fair period. Kyogle also suffered a bit of anti-dago sentiment - an unusual incident involved a custodian of the law when a policeman and a few mates from Casino got a little carried away on a night out in Kyogle in mid 1930. They came to the café for a feed around 7PM and after some odd goings-on in the Ladies Dining Room the constable challenged 18yr old Leo Coroneos thus: I will fight you ------ and I will put up fifty quid to fight the whole blooming lot of you dagoes. Leo ordered them out and was knocked over for his impertinence. At the subsequent court case the magistrate told him your idea of swearing and mine may be different and asked him to repeat ‘------‘. Leo said They referred to us as ------ dagoes. The Magistrate dismissed the charge of ‘behaving indecently’ but fined the constable two quid for ‘insulting words’, although it was unclear whether ‘dago’ or ‘-------‘ was the offending word. At the same time in Casino, where Maltese railway navvies were being naughty, George Valos also had a bloke before the beek for ‘insulting words.’

Into 1931The number of families and persons receiving assistance from the police has increased considerably recently, and is now well on towards 100 a week.... The veneer Company’s three-ply factory continues to work part-time, and Norco’s staff is being fully maintained because of recent good rains leading to increased cream production …and work may be available for the right sort of men on some farms. The plight of the share farmer is probably the most distressing. One share farmer who recently lost his position at a local district centre, has a wife and 14 children. Since Christmas he has had only two weeks work…. With so many additional taxes to pay, few dairy farmers are now in a position even to let farms on shares.... But while the dairy industry was as distressed as elsewhere, the Kyogle farmers kept breaking production records and by Oct31 a new Norco building was underway, at the same time the Northern Star could have been referring to Kyogle when it editoralised on North Coast Progress. Visitors from other parts invariably speak of the progressive spirit in evidence in North Coast districts…. The Richmond, once an area of scrub land, is the premier dairying district of the State. Other North Coast districts – the Clarence, Brunswick, and the Tweed – have also made remarkable progress, and boast of bright towns. “It is like meeting a breath of fresh air to come to the North Coast”, said a prominent visitor recently....

The Kyogle dairy industry continued to expand at a greater rate than anywhere else, particularly from 1933 when more crown lands were opened up and the land ballots were being swamped with applicants, despite a continuing famine of farm hands: Dairy farmers in the Kyogle district are finding difficulty in obtaining men or youths for work on dairy farms. The big road works now in progress absorbed practically every available man and youth in the district. Although the wages are not high on the road work jobs, the men work only five days a week, and earn more in that period than they could earn in seven days on dairy farms....

The road ‘work relief schemes’ throughout the shire were massive undertakings, employing more people than any other LGA in the region. The major project, connecting Kyogle with the Bruxner through Woodenbong, started in Sep32 and gave work to hundreds of men living in camps along various sections, while locally the farmers maintained their own - ...During the last year the spirit of self-help manifested itself to a marked degree, and many miles of roads were graveled by the farmers and the lorries and drivers by the shire... said the Northern Star in a review of 1933. Depression, as it has been understood during the last four years in the congested areas of the State, has not, as yet, cast its shadow over this district.... For months unemployment has been unknown. There are no empty houses and no empty shops. Not once, during the year, has a 'To Let' notice been exhibited.... And the Shire had far fewer rate defaulters than other LGAs, perhaps because of barter arrangements like the farmer's road work. And for some odd reason, Kyogle was one of the most politically active districts in the region, as was its PPU branch in initiating solutions to the butter marketing mess. (Mrs Perdriau of Kyogle, wife of an earlier Byron MLA, was Group Secretary of the NSW CWA when she initiated that powerful organisations' 'Eat More Butter Campaign' in early 1934.)

The mid 1933 census showed Kyogle was the best performing of the 7 shires in the region, with a median income per male breadwinner of £87, and while it had a 6% male unemployment rate, in Feb34 it had to reluctantly knock back an offer of £1000 from the Unemployment Relief Council because it had nobody on the dole (although there were still a few unemployed - apparently people did not want the dole if they had to work for it, said the secretary of the Urban Area Committee. Kyogle was one of the centres where those 'on the track' weren't entitled to the dole until they'd sat around for 3mths twiddling their thumbs to qualify.)

Kyogle – Post Depression

In 1935 the prosperity attracted Alex Samios to build The Cabaret Cafe, about a 100yds from the Fairymount and adjoining the northern side of the present Exchange Hotel. This was the site of Kyogle’s first hotel, which had been destroyed in another huge fire in 1927 and the allotment left vacant by Tooth & Co. Alex’s purpose-built two-storey affair consisted of a one hundred seat café and a shop for lease at street level, with a cabaret on the large open floor above. The shire president formally opened The Cabaret in mid 1936, but regular dances had been held there prior to this. A few years later however, whether due to lack of patronage and/or the failure of this style of ‘nightclub’ entertainment to catch on in Kyogle, the cabaret was converted to a billiards room. Nevertheless, for a period it was the most modern café in Kyogle, if not in the wider region, and, along with the Vlismas Bros Bellevue Café in Murbah, offered the best cabaret dances on the north coast.

It’s believed Alex found business tough in the face of the Conomo/Gleeson Juggernaut, now boasting three catering outlets. Eventually however, he found his niche clientele and the cafe, more often referred to as ‘the bottom cafe’ or ‘Samios’ Cafe’ by the locals, came good. While he traded as Samios Bros, it’s understood that none of his brothers, except Paul, ever came to Kyogle, although Milton is believed to have helped in the initial establishment of the place and visited often. His brothers, Paul, Milton and Peter, had purpose-built the Marble Bar Cafe in Bangalow in 1925, a year after which Samios Bros, with Alex as the principal, had sold their Mullum Marble Bar Café to Archie Caponas.

Alex, born in Aliozianika in 1899, the son of Dimitrios, a wine merchant and vineyard owner, and his wife Eleni (nee Feropoulos), landed with his brother Milton (Mitilides) in 1912 and worked for his future father-in-law, Mina Anthony Comino, in Sydney, and, after various adventures, including a café at Grafton, acquired the Feros Bros cafe in Mullumbimby in 1921. In 1926 he moved to Brisbane and established or acquired the London Cafe from where he traded for the next 10yrs before finally settling in Kyogle with his wife Theodora. Dora, a Lismore resident with her parents in 1917-18, had returned to Kythera with her mother Marouli (nee Catsoulis, the first cousin of Marouli Panaretos, nee Aroney, the mother of Paul of Casino) in 1924 after Mina’s death, coming back in 1932 upon accepting Alex’s marriage proposal by letter. She was subsequently very active in running their businesses.

Accompanying her to Sydney was her younger brother Tony who worked for Alex in both the London and Cabaret for many years before settling in Brisbane and establishing the Elizabeth Milk Bar. Her youngest brother, Theo, born in Sydney six months before his father’s death, returned in 1939 and also worked in Kyogle, where he was taught English by the catholic nuns, before joining the RAAF mid way through the war and serving in the Pacific. He also had worked for his cousin, Paul Panaretto of the Marble Bar in Casino, for a year or so around 1942, before signing up. After the war he worked with Tony in Brisbane for a while before acquiring the Paragon cafe in Hunter Street Newcastle, but subsequently settling in Townsville.

Alex’s brother Milton (Miltiadis) was in Kyogle for a short period, but whether he had any financial interest in Samios Bros is uncertain. He had sold out of his share of Samios Bros in Bangalow in about 1927 and took over the management of the London while Alex was on a holiday in Greece. In 1931 he also returned to Greece where he married Constantina Samios, both coming back in 1932 to eventually settle at Dalby. Over the following years they often holidayed in Kyogle, visiting on family and religious occasions and associating with the wider Kyogle Greek community. Their son, the Hon. James Samios MBE, born in Brisbane in 1933, became a Liberal MLC in the NSW parliament. Paul Samios was the last brother to leave Bangalow in 1944/45 and came to Kyogle with his wife Venetia to act as a shift manager for a period before settling in Sydney in the late 1940s. His financial interest in The Cabaret is another unknown.

Alex sold the business to the Goodellis Bros in 1951 and moved to Brisbane where he died in 1970. Dora and her children, Helen and Jim, sold the land and building in 1980.

Meanwhile Peters & Co had embarked on expansion. In 1936, after Dorgan of Lismore managed to find investors to build him the Roxy Theatre, Gleeson and Conomos established the Roxy Milkbar adjacent to the theatre in Geneva Street, which they ran part time with their families until the theatre closed in the 1960s. But they had established an earlier cafe in 1932, taking up one of the shops in the new £8000 Memorial Institute, rebuilt after another disastrous fire destroyed the old School of Arts, in which Mrs Hassal ran a cafe. This shop, opened under the mysterious proprietorship of Peters Bros on the corner of Main and Stratheden Streets, and simply called The Corner Shop, was allegedly established as an employee incentive scheme, but had the secondary benefit of precluding any competition from town. The intention was for the oldest serving member of the male staff at the Fairymount to be given this cafe to operate as his own for a period of two years, enabling him to make a financial start towards his own business. Possession however, is nine tenths etc and the first manager, Menelaos (Leo) Coroneos, hung on until the early 1940s when he left to join the AIF. After war service he worked in Pittsworth for a while before moving to Ballina in the late 1940s, subsequently going into partnership with his brother Peter who left the Peters employ around 1952.

Simon Angelo Papadopoulos, allegedly another survivor of the carnage in Smyrna and an old boyhood friend of Stan Gleeson, leased the business after Leo left and, proclaiming ownership, renamed it Papas Cafe. He was born in Athens in 1903 and landed in late 1924 after a year in Egypt, perhaps to where he escaped with Stan after the disaster of Smyrna. He was a six footer with an outgoing personality and was well-liked around town, developing a reputation as a bit of a character who smoked like a chimney and couldn’t resist a game of cards or pool. His cafe also had a bit of a reputation as a touch shambolic. [One anecdote has him preparing food over the hot plate with a fag hanging from his mouth when the health inspector walked through the door. He promptly swallowed the smouldering fag and was observed to have had watery eyes for a good period afterwards.] Nevertheless, he had a fond following in Kyogle and all were most surprised when he suddenly walked away from his business in 1964 and disappeared to Brisbane, where he died ten years later.

In 1948 Peter Conomo married Chrissa Samios, unconnected to Alex, in a grand affair in Brisbane that drew Greeks from all over the countryside. Best man was Angelo Crethar, the doyen of the Greek community of Lismore, while the master of ceremonies was Christy Freeleagus, the Greek Consul to Queensland. Chrissa’s nephews, Jim Samios, who landed as a 16yr old in 1950, and Peter, who arrived as a 14yr old sometime around the mid 1950s, and her brother John, who landed before the war, progressively turned up in Kyogle from the early 50s, becoming employees and remaining until Peter retired in 1958. Jim and Peter then acquired the Bellevue cafe at Warwick, a cafe their father George had owned back in the 1920/30s, employing John for a period until he settled at Maroochydore. Jim was subsequently awarded the OAM for services to the Warwick community. George had arrived in Warwick to join his brothers Peter and Theo who, in early 1919 in partnership with Kery Trifillis, had acquired the Bellevue from Nick Koukoulis and his uncle Jim Menegas, Jim having established the place in 1906 with partners Harry Tsicalas and Mick Catsoulis. Nick became an identity around Coolangatta, Tweed Heads and Murbah, while Jim’s offspring spent many years in Kyogle.

In 1958 Peter Conomo sold his share of the business, but retaining his half ownership of the building, to his Godson, Stan’s son Con, and retired to Brisbane. His farewell function was a grand affair, drawing Greeks from all over the region to hear the shire president give a fond speech remarking on his 39yrs of excellent service to the community.  He died whilst on holiday in Athens in 1962 and was buried back at Mylopotamos next to his parents. Chrissa recently died in Brisbane. Their daughter, Maria, married George Samios, the son of Andreas of Ballina.

Stan Gleeson died suddenly at Coolangatta in 1961 and a few years later Katina retired to Brisbane where she died in 1986. They both lie in the Kyogle cemetery. The sons of the partners, Nick Conomo and Con Gleeson, inherited the Fairymount building, but the business, like the café game elsewhere, was rapidly transforming. Sometime earlier, after it became uneconomic to make their own chocolates and cakes, for which they had employed a full time pastry cook, Con, an officer in the CMF, commandeered the shop front where the cakes were displayed and started a sporting goods store from where he sold guns, fishing tackle and the like. The café, reduced to half its original size by a subsequent dividing wall, continued to be operated by Con and his wife Chrissy, nee Aroney of Tamworth, until 1967 when they managed to sell the business to Fred Johnson. The building itself was sold to the accountant Harold Brown in 1983. Con and Chrissy went into the real estate game at Coolangatta for 6yrs before eventually ending up back in the restaurant business in the Brisbane CBD. Stan’s brother Jim died at Kyogle in 1972, having served the partnership for almost 50yrs.

The cafe, at 85 Summerland Way, the new name for Main Street, has since been through the hands of a number of owners but continues to be known as Peters Cafe and still retains a lot of the old ambience, including the original pressed metal ceiling. What was the Fairymount side of the business is now occupied by a solicitor's office and the end shop is now Millers Shoes. The Corner Shop, aka Pappas Cafe, at 131 Summerland Way, closed in 1964 and initially became a photo studio before undergoing a couple of makeovers to reach its present status as Gateway Office Supplies. The drop in the floor where the deep fryer was sited is a trap for the unwary.

Over the years the Conomos/Gleeson partnership made significant contributions to the Kyogle community. A tradition established way back was the showering of the Citizen’s Brass band with one and five pound notes as they played beneath the balcony of the café each Christmas. Stan’s good friend was Fr.Nichols, the local catholic priest who had a daily appointment in the cafe for his cup of Greek coffee. Somehow the good Father managed to lay a guilt trip on the two tough-minded partners who ended up donating the front doors for the new church. But they got even by also donating the front doors for the new Methodist church. In its heyday ‘Peters’ was Kyogle’s most popular meeting place, remaining a very well-run and successful establishment, due in part to Stan Gleeson’s authoritarian management style, for nigh on 50yrs. [For the trivia buffs, the 1943 wages book shows he paid a pastry cook £5 per week, a general cook £4/10/6 and a waitress £2/8/9.]

The Goodellis Bros, Con and Mick, born in Athens, 1925 and 1929 respectively, bought the Samios business and leased the premises in 1951. Con landed in 1940 and almost immediately joined the Army, which packed him off to serve in Bougainville, the Solomons and other unfriendly places in the southwest Pacific, while Mick survived the havoc of Athens to land in 1947. He left for Brisbane in 1956, the same year Con married Irene Appo of Lismore. Their sister, Christina, married Con Drougas, perhaps he earlier of Coraki. Con and Irene continued to run the business, still known as Samios Café, until 1961 when they sold out to Don and Marj Blinkton and moved on elsewhere. The Blinkhorns renamed the place Summerland Café, which it continued to be known as for the next 30yrs or so as the business passed through a number of hands. But today it is trading at 57 Summerland Way as Goody’s Cafe and still retains a little of the old style ambience of that classic cafe period.

The first Greek outside the café stereotype was Tony Lazaredes, a chemist born in Townsville to refugee parents from Sethitye, on the coast of Asia Minor, who had made their way to Australia via Crete and Athens after the infamous population exchange of 1922. Tony and his wife Marion, a local girl and also a chemist, bought Fords Pharmacy in 1963 and became prominent citizens in Kyogle. They retired to the Gold Coast in 1995.

Another later arrival was Spiro (Pip) Perdecaris who came up from Sydney in 1980 and acquired the Kyogle Newsagency and freehold. Pip was born in Sydney, but with the Greek wanderlust blood in his veins ventured out into country NSW after leaving school and worked in hardware stores, particularly in Boggabri and Blayney, before returning to Sydney with wife Netta and purchasing a newsagency at Fairlight after a stint as manager of an electrical store. Still with itchy feet, he moved down from Kyogle in 1986, subsequently buying Cappucinos in Lismore from Peter Coronakes.

In its heyday in the 1930s and 40s Kyogle looked like becoming one of the major towns in NSW. Through to the war and beyond it continued to grow as the commercial centre of one of the biggest dairy production regions in the nation. But while it enjoyed the temporary blip in growth experienced by most towns immediately postwar, soldier settlements and the wave of mass migration passed the shire by. And while Kyogle town itself continued a slow growth until 1960, the shire population peaked at around 11,500 in 1950, when there were still 840 commercial dairies operating, the highest concentration in the region, but thereafter stagnation set in and by 1977 the number of dairies had declined dramatically to 118.  Things picked up in the 1980s and since then, despite a fright in the late 1990s, it has experienced steady development and a lively township, being blessed with old-established families and businesses who retain an active interest in community affairs and the town’s progress.

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Nimbin

Nimbin was slow getting off the ground and its first building, the School of Arts, wasn’t built until 1902. Then came a general store in about 1905, followed by a boarding house, bakery, a couple of houses, a church, a school and the butter factory, and by the start of the war it was up and running. At the time George John Malano turned up from Kyogle in 1921/22, when the dairy industry was riding high, the place had a population of 800 people being serviced by three cafes. It seems this competition and the decline in profitability of the dairy industry forced a temporary return to Kyogle around the mid 1920s, when he was recorded as proprietor of Malano's Fish Shop, perhaps implying he was no longer a partner in Peters & Co. But upon coming back to Nimbin in early 1930 he took a leaf out of the Peters & Co marketing manual: George Malano, late of Kyogle, announces that he will be opening an up-to-date café in Nimbin… £1/1/- will be paid to anyone in Nimbin or district selecting the most suitable name for the café…. This was a desperate Depression decision given the high failure rate of other cafes in the region at this time. ‘Blue Mount Café’ eventually won the naming game and he proceeded to offer meals all hours... Hot Dinners... Fresh Fish every Wednesday and Friday…and also introducing the Latest American Fountain Drinks. The only other cafes in town at this time appear to be Duncan’s Refreshment Rooms, Fredericks' Café and The Diggers Shop, run by T.C. Lucas, late of the AIF.

Outside Lismore the Terania Shire appeared to be the first recipient of unemployment relief grants, getting £1132 in late Jul30 for the Cawongla to Kunghur Road (increased to £4000 in early August), which initially employed 12 men but was increased to 50 as work progressed. In mid August it was advised that Labour exchanges throughout the country have received instructions that the migration of unemployed to distant places where work is going on will be prevented as far as possible and local men get preference. Thus Terania council will absorb the unemployed men on its own electoral roll before engaging men from outside, presumably including Lismore, home to Terania Shire Council. It was all spent by by early 1931, at which time the shire's financial position is very much worse than it was twelve months ago, due to the large over-expenditure during the past year resulting in an increase of the overdraft of £3751 and the reduction of £1600 in Government endowment, making a total shortage for 1931 of £5351....

Thereafter no grant money trickled in until the election pork-barrelling of mid 1932, at which time the Teranians won £500 on condition they matched it with £100 from their own coffers. At Christmas they scored another £500 if they could find a matching £500, which was extracted from the 17 farmers along the Terania Creek Road where the money was spent giving work to 30 blokes. At the time of the mid 1933 census there were still 30 men receiving the dole, who were sprung supplementing the food hand-outs by working in banana plantations. The resulting crackdown left only 13 available to start work on the Nimbin-Channon Road by the time the council adopted the work-for-the-dole scheme in Aug33 . But they picked up another 21 on the Lismore register to work around Clunes.

Conversely, the census found 86 self-assessing males as unemployed in Terania, probably inclusive of 448 male breadwinners who reckoned they'd earned no income in the last 12mths (representing 15.5% of total 'breadwinners' and the highest percentage in the region), perhaps indicating a large floating population of blokes 'on the track' and a heap of subsistence farmers working around the clock but generating no income. Nimbin town itself had only grown marginally, to 847, a gain of 45 people in the12yrs since the 1921 census. (The census also sprung another Greek male in town, but his identity remains a mystery.)

By Oct33, when street lights were switched on at Nimbin, a review of council finances indicated that continuing rate defaults would leave a deficit of £6468 and an overdraft of £9668 by the end of the year, but a decision to curtail road maintenance expenditure resulted in the financial position being a little better by the end of the year. Thereafter finances were a juggling act, perhaps the reason for the Main Roads Board, in announcing a £20,000 Cawongla roads project in Mar34, stated it would be carrying out the work itself.

At the same time a bone of contention was the Forestry Commission's assumption of responsibility for building roads into Nightcap Range to allow the highly paid sleeper cutters access to the State Forests. The Commission was already employing 60 blokes on fire breaks, thinning, etc, while the sleeper cutters were earning up to £10/wk each, with each camp producing up to 200 sleepers per day. In early Sep34 a batch of 1800 sleepers from Whian Whian earned £270 at the Bex Hill Depot, from where they were trained to Byron Bay for dispatch to China or New Zealand.

Nevertheless, dairy farming remained Terania's main industry and its decline meant Nimbin went down hill for the next 50yrs, despite the temporary prop-up by the Italian banana benders. In the meantime George sold out to Paul Condoleon in 1935/36, although it’s believed he was still a Nimbin resident in late 1938, when the population still stood at about 800.

In December of that year he returned to Greece for a holiday, but got trapped by the war and by 1943 had run out of money. Somehow or other he made application to the 'Protecting Power' stating he was destitute and was duly awarded a provisional relief pension of 600,000 drachmae per month (about two bob) pending formalising the means of later repayment. How all this worked is a great mystery, but as a naturalised Australian with a British passport he fell under the umbrella of some wartime convention. However, without any assets in Australia as security the tricky part was that he had to have a guarantor who would undertake to pay the money back should he later default. Stan Gleeson didn't want to know him and the police eventually tracked down George's brother-in-law, Peter Gleeson of Coffs Harbour, who was prepared to give such an undertaking.

In 1946, with the postwar withdrawal of his pension, George was desperate to return to Australia. But he was once more destitute, unemployed and unable to make any contribution towards the settlement of his debt, causing great hassles in seeking repatriation to Australian through the agency of the British Embassy in Athens. The Australian authorities wouldn’t grant entry until once again he had a sponsor and guarantee of employment, and once again Peter Gleeson came to the rescue. However, it seems the slow working of the bureaucracy meant the matter wasn’t resolved until late 1948 and how George, aged 64 by then, survived in the meantime is an interesting question as Peter Gleeson had cut off his progress payments in late 1947.

Apostolos Emmanuel Kontoleos (Petrocheilos), aka Paul Condoleon, was 25yrs old when he landed from the village of Avlemonas on Kythera in mid 1923 after service in the Greek navy. He spent a couple of years at Delegate in partnership with Emmanuel Leontsinis before joining his brother Nick at Bombala. In 1929 he returned to Kythera and married Pelagia, the daughter of John Condoleon and Kalliopi (nee Vlandis) of Hora, in 1934. That same year they returned to Queanbeyan with Pelagia’s brother Theo, but within a few months were prompted for some reason to go to Murwillumbah. Shortly afterwards however, they heard of Malano’s business for sale at Nimbin, arriving in town in 1935 and remaining for 10yrs before returning to Queanbeyan with Theo, who had in the meantime had adventures in the banana game around Murbah. In 1947 they all moved onto Wellington to acquire the Hollywood café of Theo Frilingos, remaining for 6yrs before going their separate ways; Paul and family to Earlwood in Sydney where Paul died in 1970 and Pelagia in 1992, and Theo who remained in Wellington where he died a bachelor in 1960 at the young age of 42.

Their two sons, Manuel and John, were born 1935 Nimbin and 1941 Lismore respectively. Paul’s cousin, George Kavalinis, the father of Sylvia Petrochilos of Bonalbo, was Manuel’s godfather, while Florrie Crethary (nee Panaretos) of Lismore became John’s godmother. Manuel died in 1982, while John, an architect, now lives in Sydney with his wife Androulla and sons Paul and Christopher who work as systems consultants in information technology.

The Condoleons are of Venetian origin and amongst the oldest families on Kythera, establishing Kontolianika after moving up from Hora. It’s a curious coincidence that they and Petrochilos, the odd men out amongst this regional stronghold of the northern Kytherians, should choose to settle not far from each other in two remote towns either side of Kyogle where Malano and Megaloconomos from Milopotamos were also lone rangers.

The Blue Mount Café remained one of the oldest continuous businesses in Nimbin. Upon leaving town in 1946 Paul handed on the shop to Tom Smith, a local farmer who promptly converted half the premises to living accommodation and the other half into a barbershop. But in the 1970s a café in the hands of Tom Smith was again trading under the name The Blue Mount. It was later eclipsed by the internationally known Rainbow Cafe, established just down the road during Nimbin’s hippy era, which rescued a dying town, and still going strong as a major tourist curiosity, despite the recent fire. 

Earlier the Italians had revitalised the area when they started to appear in the late 1920s. By 1933 they were producing 3000 cases of bananas a month and later, with post war family reunions, Nimbin became one of the major banana producing areas in the country. Their increasing presence however, couldn’t sustain the loss from the dairy industry and by the time the first of the hippies turned up in the early 1970s bananas had also collapsed, leaving Nimbin as a basket case with a population of 386. By the time The Age of Aquarius arrived in 1972 Nimbin’s population had declined a further 20%, leaving vacant and boarded up shops everywhere. Communally, the hipsters brought up about half the town for peanuts, including the deserted RSL club for $500 and the Rainbow and Hemp Embassy land and buildings for $1000. Today the banana and dairy industries have disappeared entirely and Nimbin is now propped up by marijuana and associated industries. Andrew Kavasilias now runs one of Nimbin’s popular Cannabis Cafes. 

He married Argyroula (Sylvia) Kavalinis in Sydney in 1941. Sylvia was born in Fremantle in 1921 when the boat bringing her parents, George and Eleni (nee Leontsinis), and brother Spiro, made its first port of call in Australia. They moved on to Sydney where the family settled at Kingsford and where the last children, Katerina and Peter, were born. George and Eleni, married in Avlemonas on Kythera in 1919, were one of the rare couples at that time to arrive as a family unit. As a general rule most Kytherian males arrived alone and worked for many years before being able to bring their families out or, in case of the more numerous single males, get married and raise a family. Peter and Sylvia had two daughters, Eleni and Marina, who went to school in Casino and stayed during the week with Nick and Florrie Crethar. Peter was also the Godfather of Steve Zantiotis of Casino, and both families subsequently had a close relationship.

Peter was the only one of his family to migrate but, with Greg Londy (Leondarakis) of Casino, shared a relationship with the Collarenebri identity, Emmanuel Basil Petrocheilos. Peter died in Lismore 3Sep88 aged 82, while Sylvia still lives in Bonalbo. Their daughter Eleni, who now lives in Casino, described her father as ‘a man who loved everything and everybody and firmly believed that you got out of the community what you put in’.

By the time of Peter’s death Bonalbo was recovering from its slump, which saw it decline to its 1933 population by the mid 1970s. Post war however, it had been one of the rare villages to go against the region’s trend, peaking at 630 people in the mid 1950s, a growth of 30% on pre war figures and greater than all the main population centres. Alas, the rapid decline of the dairy industry ended what looked like a bright future.
 

Woodenbong

It seems Theo Peter Lahanas established a café here in 1932 when the place was smaller than Bonalbo, being home to about 300 people, but, like Bonalbo, amongst the handful of places experiencing the highest growth rates in the region, particularly through the Depression. He had landed from Potamos on Kythera in 1900, aged 18, and gone direct to Inverell to do his on-the-job training with Spyro Peter Panaretos. Three years later he moved to Sydney and in 1910, after another stint at Inverell, established the first Greek presence in Wauchope. Just before the war he sold out to the Cassimatis Bros and moved to Kempsey to relieve his brother John who had decided Hobart offered a more discerning clientele for his gourmet oysters. And then in 1920 he sold out to the Motte Bros and came to this region, mainly working at Kyogle, where a number of Lahanas appeared over the years, until deciding to test the market over the border at Killarney in 1923. He sold the Killarney business to Mrs Sophie Canaris (a likely niece) in 1927 and built a cafe at Talwood where he installed his nephew, John Bellesis, as manager, then moving on to Morven to establish another cafe. In late 1932 came the cafe business of Stan Reid at Woodenbong, acquired in his wife's name, by which time he was in financial trouble, owing money to Peter Dimitri Samios of Warwick and the Mavromatis/Maromatte Bros of Brisbane. On 10Nov32 Theodore Lahana, formerly of Warwick, Killlarney, Talwood, Morven and Woodenbong..., was adjudged bankrupt....

The road linking Woodenbong to the Bruxner Highway through Urbenville and Bonalbo was one of the first to attract finance in the Depression work relief schemes, granted £2000 in Jul32 and employing 80 blokes within a month and 250 by early 1933, at which time the Woodenbong-Kyogle road, now the Summerland Way and one of the most important roads in the district, became part of the network that received a whopping £280,000 from the Unemployment Relief Council. Towards the end of the year 140 miles of road and numerous bridges were under construction, with camps established all over the place, allegedly one at Grevillia temporarily building to 1152 men. The roads enabled closer settlement, opening up more grazing and dairy land and giving easier access to the timber resources, so much so that in 1933 Woodenbong’s population had grown to 362 and the butter factory had 80 suppliers.

In 1935 the Lahanas sold their cafe to Peter John Crethar of Lismore and re-established on the Mt Lindesay Highway on the road out of town, dubbing the new joint the 'Lindesay Cafe'. Theo died in Jan36 and a couple of months later his wife Maude and son Colin sold up, shortly after which Colin also departed this world.

Peter John Crethar landed from Karavas, on the northern tip of Kythera, in the late 1920s and worked for his cousins, Nick and Harry Dimitrios Crethar, in the Regent Cafe in Lismore until putting his own stamp on the Lahanas café, making it over into Crethars Café, under which name it remained for the next 25yrs. He married Garavgalia (Fofo) Crethary, the sister of Peter Nicholas Crethary of the Monterey Cafe in Lismore. Together they traded in Woodenbong until the early 1950s when they passed the business to Peter's nephew, also named Peter Crethar, son of his brother Harry of Tenterfield, and moved to Brisbane.

Peter Harry Crethar had landed in December 1939 and after a short period with his father in Tenterfield, and Minas (Mick) Crethar at the Empire Cafe in Stanthorpe, came to join his uncle at Woodenbong in late 1940. He grew up here, doing the usual Australian things of playing football, cricket and tennis, before starting a boot repair business, acquiring a milk run and then a cream run, which he ran for 6yrs between Urbenville and Woodenbong, before taking over his uncle's business. He sold up in 1961 and moved with his family to Brisbane, so ending the Greek presence in this neck of the woods.

Peter married Alexandra Mariakis/Maliaroudakis (Alice Miller), the niece of Fofo Crethar, in 1945. Alexandra and her sisters were sent down to Woodenbong from Brisbane during the war because of their mother's fear of Japanese bombing raids. Her mother, Marianthi, was foundation Vice-President of the Orthodox School Committee in Brisbane in 1931, with Maria Sargent, mother of the Sargents of Lismore, as President.

Woodenbong continued to be a curiosity in defying the trends of similar sized towns. In 1947 the population had surpassed that of Bonalbo, reaching 515, an extraordinary growth of 42% on post Depression figures. Although it continued to grow, Bonalbo again took the lead in the mid 1950s, but thereafter both places went into rapid decline. Nevertheless, over the period of the early 1990s, when all towns were again haemorrhaging, it grew an extraordinary 8%, and today with 382 people is again bigger than Bonalbo. It remains the centre for another 200 people in the surrounding timber and dairying industries.