Syrup dispenser. Photograph Joanna Boileau

Collection
Tweed River Regional Museum, Murwillumbah, Australia.

Object Name and number
Syrup Dispenser & Cash Register.

Object/Collection Description
Stainless steel syrup dispenser, made in about 1938 or 1939. It takes the form of a rectangular steel box, with six curved lids along the front and open along the back. On each lid is a round ceramic handle labelled with one of the syrup flavours: from left to right, Sarsaparilla, Hop Ale, Cherry, Ginger Ale, Ginger Beer and Lime Juice. Inside the box are six square ceramic containers for the syrups, sitting on a sloping shelf so that they are tilted towards the front of the dispenser. Four of the original syrup ladles sit inside four of the ceramic containers. They have shallow round bowls and long handles with curved ends that fit over the wider front edges of the ceramic containers. Two of the ceramic containers are cracked, and one of them has a piece broken off the top edge. Dimensions: Syrup dispenser: height 300 mm, width 750 mm, depth 400 mm. Ceramic containers: height 200 mm, width 130 mm, depth 130 mm. Ladles: length of handle 180 mm, diameter of bowl 57 mm.

Cash Register. Photograph Joanna Boileau

Gross cash register was made in England and converted from sterling to decimal currency for use in Australia. In the base is a cash drawer with compartments for notes and coins. Above the drawer on the front of the machine are two rows of thirteen round keys. The top row has three grey keys numbered $6, $4, $2, five red keys (cents) numbered 90, 70 50 30 10, four blue keys numbered 8, 6, 4 and 2 and a red key with the letters N/S. The 50 and 8 keys are stuck in the lower position. The bottom row has four grey keys numbered $7, $5, $3 and $1, four red keys numbered 80, 60 40 and 20, and five blue keys numbered 9, 7, 5, 3 and 1. There is a blue key on the left hand side of these two rows labelled SET. Above the rows of keys is a central lock and a Union Jack sticker. Above this is a torn paper label with the inscription ‘International Business Equipment for sales and service Phone Gold Coast 31 15 43′. At the top of the register is a rectangular glass panel with four sets of numbers showing amounts of individual items and totals and a tab labelled CASH. Above this are the letters $ (above the first two numbers) and c (above the second set of numbers). The same numbers are visible from the back of the register, facing the customer. To the left of the glass panel is a metal plate with the Gross company logo. Dimensions height 440 mm, width 370 mm, depth 395 mm.

The syrup dispenser was in use in the Tweed Fruit Exchange, owned by the Varela family, until the 1960s. Aspa Pouloudis has worked at the Tweed Fruit Exchange for over 40 years. She remembers that the syrup dispenser was already in the store when she started working there in 1962, and thinks that it formed part of a soda fountain in the original Comino café. This indicates that the syrup dispenser dates from the late 1930s. The age of the ceramic containers and the ceramic handles labelled with the different syrup flavours supports this. The flavours labelled on the syrup dispenser such as sarsaparilla, ginger ale, and hop ale were popular flavourings added to carbonated water to create sodas.

In their heyday in the 1940s and 1950s Australian cafes and milk bars adopted the latest American craze for soda fountains. In America soda fountains sprang up in drugstores, ice-cream parlours, candy stores and department stores. In the early twentieth century many soda fountains expanded their menus and became lunch counters, serving light meals as well as ice cream sodas, sundaes and milk shakes. Milk bars and soda fountains served an important social function in both America and Australia, as public spaces where neighbours could socialise and exchange community news and gossip. With the introduction of fast foods, commercial ice creams, and bottled soft drinks, the rise of the motor vehicle and the spread of suburbia, soda fountains began to decline in the cities. But milk bars survived in many Australian country towns well into the second half of the twentieth century.

By the 1960s when Aspa began working at the Tweed Fruit Exchange the syrup dispenser was mainly used in making milk shakes. The flavours available then were caramel, vanilla, strawberry, chocolate, and lime, indicating changes in popular taste since the 1940s. The Varelas made their own chocolate and vanilla syrups by boiling up measured amounts of sugar and water with either cocoa or vanilla essence. They purchased commercial caramel, strawberry and lime syrups from Cottees. Aspa recalls that they used two day old milk, straight from the refrigerator so that it was very cold. This milk frothed up better and made a thicker milk shake. The milk shakes were served either in aluminium containers or glasses. In the late 1960s coloured anodised aluminium milk shake containers were introduced. Some customers preferred to drink their milk shakes from the aluminium containers because they stayed cold longer. The Varelas also made freshly squeezed orange and lemon juices, and kept them in a big container in the refrigerator so that they were chilled. According to Aspa’s recollections the milk bar section of the store was installed when the Tweed Fruit Exchange was rebuilt in 1958. It was located to one side of the fruit and vegetable section, and consisted of a long high counter. There were no tables and chairs, customers drank their milk shakes there or took them away.

Aspa remembers how busy the shop was on Fridays when all the farming families came into town. The men would retire to the Imperial Hotel next door while the women did the weekly shopping and came into the Tweed Fruit Exchange to buy their children a milk shake. There was a lot of competition, with so many cafes and milk bars in Murwillumbah like the Ritz, the Austral and the Belle Vue. The café and retailing business was very different in the 1960s, Aspa remembers that the milk was checked by health inspectors but apart from that there were few other rules and regulations. There was no self service in the fruit and vegetable shop, everyone waited their turn.

The first business named the Tweed Fruit Exchange in Murwillumbah was Angus Brothers fruit and vegetable store, established in Commercial Road in 1936 by Nick, Steve and George Angouras (Angus). They first arrived in Australia from a small village in the Peloponnese in 1926. The Angus Brothers venture prospered and within a few years they had three stores in Murwillumbah. They were both wholesale and retail enterprises, specialising in handling the produce of local growers.

In early 1940 George Varela bought Angus brothers fruit store in Commercial Road. George Varela arrived in Australia in 1928 with his father Spyro, who established a milk bar in Mascot in Sydney. Spyro raised enough capital to bring the rest of the family to Australia: his wife Angelina and their three other children, Nick, Bill and Joyce (Zoe). Sadly he died in 1936 at a young age. After his death the family sold the milk bar and for several years the three boys travelled around country New South Wales in search of work. In Gunnedah the Varela brothers met Archie (Anastasios) Pouloudis, a wool classer and skin dealer from Athens, who married their sister Joyce in Sydney in 1938. George returned to Sydney where he met Steve Angus, who told him he was thinking of selling the Commercial Road store of Angus Brothers. After visiting Murwillumbah and seeing for himself the business opportunities there, George bought the store and invited his brothers to join him.

The present day Tweed Fruit Exchange in Main Street Murwillumbah had its origins in the Comino brothers’ fruit shop. In 1943 the Varela Brothers went into partnership with Steve and Jack Comino. They bought a half share in their fruit shop in Main Street, which became the Tweed Fruit Exchange. The Comino brothers were members of the established Comino family, some of whom had spent time in Lismore before settling in Brisbane, Bundaberg and Childers in the early 1900s. Their father Peter Comino was one of the well known Cominos of the Brisbane Fruit markets.

June Dwyer remembers the Tweed Fruit Exchange in the early 1940s when it was run by the Cominos. She recalls a full café at the rear of the store with tables and chairs, serving three course meals as well as milkshakes and light refreshments. A friend of June’s, Grace Kennedy, worked at the Tweed Fruit Exchange. June would often go there on Friday and Saturday nights to help her clear tables and wash up so that they could finish in time to catch the 8 o’clock bus to go to dances in the hall at Tyalgum. June also remembers the American servicemen who came into the café and flirted with them.

Once their partnership was formed Comino and Varela relegated the café in the Main Street store to a small space at the side of the shop and concentrated on developing the fruit and vegetable side of the business. They took over a vacant shop next door and expanded their business into a major wholesale and retail fruit and vegetable outlet, Murwillumbah’s largest fruit market. They built cool rooms and a ripening room, at that time the only ripening room between Brisbane and Murwillumbah. These business decisions were prompted by the fact that the café market in Murwillumbah was very competitive during the war, and it was difficult to find staff. So it made sense to limit overheads by reducing the café side of the business, which required more staff to run. George Varela and Steve Comino joined the army, while Nick and Bill Varela managed the store.

During the war Archie and Joyce Pouloudis came from Gunnedah to join the Cominos and Varelas in Murwillumbah, together with their mother and two children. The Pouloudis took over the management of the Commercial Road shop while the Varelas and Cominos continued to expand in the Main Street shop. They bought the truck and delivery contracts of the Angus Brothers and Nick and Bill Varela built up the carrier business. By the end of the war they had expanded to three trucks. Twice a week they collected the produce of local farmers and delivered it to the Brisbane markets. On the return journey they brought supplies for their own retail outlet in Murwillumbah and also made deliveries to other stores between Southport and Tumbulgum.

Soon after the war the Varelas won the contract from the Banana Growers Federation (BGF) to transport bananas to the Brisbane Markets. In addition to their daily fruit and vegetable run to and from the markets, they did a run to Brisbane every evening, collecting produce from seven BGF depots in the Tweed Valley. Nick continued the carrier business after Bill died in 1972, until the business was sold in 1984.

In about 1954 the Varelas bought out the Cominos and purchased the freehold of the Comino and Varela store. As business was slow after the war, the Cominos were willing to sell their share of the business and decided to move to Brisbane. In early 1958 the Varelas pulled down the old timber building on the Imperial Hotel side of the original store and extended the existing brick building, adding two new shops for lease and erecting a unifying façade across the combined sites. The upper story had an attractive verandah over the footpath which they wanted to retain, but Tweed Shire Council, in its zeal for modernisation, refused permission. The Varelas renamed the fruit and vegetable store the Tweed Fruit Exchange and installed a new milk bar.

The Gross cash register was purchased in the early 1960s, and in 1966 it was converted from sterling to decimal currency. Aspa Pouloudis recalls that it was used in the store until the early 1980s. Gross Cash Registers Ltd was founded in London in 1946 by Henry and Sam Gross. The brothers had both studied engineering and in the 1930s set out to invent a cash register that could be easily mass produced. The Second World War put their plans on hold, but they began production of cash registers and adding machines after the end of hostilities. By the late 1950s the company employed over 2,000 people and exported business machines worldwide, including Australia. Britain changed over from sterling to decimal currency in 1971. Henry Gross spent months developing a cash register mechanism that easily switched from £sd to £p, so that companies using them could instantly change over on the big day. This invention resulted in huge orders for the company. It would be interesting to research further the process by which cash registers in Australia, including the Gross cash register from the Tweed Fruit Exchange, were converted to decimal currency in 1966. Gross Cash Registers Ltd continued trading until the early 1970s. Faced with competition from Japanese electronic machines, the company was sold to Chubb.

By the early 1980s George Varela was in poor health and decided to sell the business. Eric Buttenshaw purchased the store and the BGF contract in 1984 and ran it for five years, assisted by Nick Varela’s nephews Arthur and Spiro Pouloudis, who had worked in the shop since leaving school. Arthur and Spiro bought the business from Eric Buttenshaw in 1989 and ran it for 11 years. In 2000 Spiro sold his share to Arthur who now runs the business with his son Paul. Today the Tweed Fruit Exchange is still in family hands, and occupies one of the four shop fronts in the two-storey building bearing that name. The Pouloudis family are the only Greeks in Murwillumbah still loosely connected with the catering business.

This syrup dispenser and cash register were used in the Tweed Fruit Exchange in Murwillumbah from the late 1930s until the early 1960s. The Tweed Fruit Exchange had its origins in the Comino brothers’ fruit shop in Main Street. In 1943 Steve and Jack Comino went into partnership with the Varela Brothers, George Nick and Bill. In about 1954 the Varelas bought out the Cominos. The Varelas sold the business in 1984, and it is now run by the Pouloudis family, related by marriage to the Varelas.

The syrup dispenser and cash register are symbols of Australian café culture of the 1940s and 1950s. They derive historic and intangible significance from their association with the Greek owned Tweed Fruit Exchange in Murwillumbah. The changes of ownership of the Tweed Fruit Exchange over the years illustrate the intricate business and family networks that grew up among the Greek community, scattered in country towns across New South Wales and Queensland. The syrup dispenser and cash register reflect the long hours of hard work, solidarity and close family connections that made Greek businesses in New South Wales country towns successful. They bring back memories for the family members and others who worked in the milk bar and fruit and vegetable store for long hours, serving milk shakes, drinks and ice creams, preparing syrups and fresh fruit juices, cleaning, serving in the shop and doing the many other tasks involved in running a family business.

They also have intangible significance for the customers of all ages who visited the Tweed Fruit Exchange for a milk shake, catching up on the latest gossip while they waited for the click of the aluminium container as it was put on the mixer and then the whir of the machine as it frothed up the ice cold milk. The cash register has technological significance, as it was converted from sterling to decimal currency in 1966, bridging the transition to decimal currency. This transition also had socio economic and political dimensions, marking a loosening of the ties between Australia and Britain.

Bibliography

Johansen, Ron. ‘Tweed Fruit Exchange’. Tales of Our Times,
Vol. 10, December 2002, pp. 59-60.

Jupp, J (ed). 1988, The Australian People, Angus and Robertson,
North Ryde.

Museums and Galleries NSW 2006, Milk Shakes Sundaes and Café Culture Education Kit.

Tsicalas, P 2003, Greeks and other Aliens of the Tweed and Brunswick, self published, Murwillumbah.

Wilton, J 1989, Immigrants in the Bush: Cafes and Café Owners,
Multicultural Education Co-ordinating Committee, Armidale.

Websites

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soda_fountain

www.vintagecalculators.com/html/gross.html#History