Dining @ Niagara
Revisiting the small town Greek Cafe of the 1950s and 60s
Revisiting the small town Greek Cafe of the 1950s and 60s
The phrase 'when I was young' is so cliché and yet as one grows older fragments of past memories emerge from everyday experience. The fragments trigger memories of simpler - less complex times and simple pleasures.
The town of Gundagai is part way along the Hume highway between Sydney and Albury. We stopped in town looking for a place to get some lunch - a takeaway maybe, the simple staple of the Australian traveller - a meat pie, tomato sauce and a can of Coke. Bakeries in the town looked closed, swish fine dining cafes looked too predictably up-market.
Mid way along the main street was situated the quaint facade of curved glass, tiled step and menu taped to the window of the Niagara Cafe. We walked in to a 1950s bench-styed dark stained seating area. At each table salt and pepper shakers sat astride red-capped dark sauce bottles and a menu. The table tops were a pea green and walls covered in newspaper reports, horse racing photo finish pictures, paired Australian and Greek flags, annotated photos and other ephemera.
We checked out the menu ...
We couldn't help but think that Robert Frank was sitting at the table next door ... or, was he here 50 years ago?
