Archie Caponas

Below is an abridged version of the entrepreneurial activities of the Kytherian Archie Caponas extracted from the book ‘Greeks and Other Aliens around the Tweed and Brunswick’, which is the first volume of the opus on Greek settlement of the Northern Rivers region of NSW by the entrepreneurially challenged Peter Tsicalas. The limited number of hardcopies produced were left with all his local libraries and Historical Societies, but can be obtained through inter-library loan. Peter intends the book as an interim one while he takes forever to finalize some outstanding matters, and in this regard would welcome any feedback, corrections or photos from those with connections to the region.
Please contact him at [email protected] for a digital copy. Stay tuned for further details.

Archie Caponas
After Queanbeyan, Mullumbimby was the largest enclave of postwar Greeks in rural NSW, primarily because of the lucrative banana industry, which for a time became the North Coast’s leading wealth producer. While the Ithacans were the dominant regional group the Kytherians were major players, with Archie Caponas (Anastasios Minas Protopsaltis) amongst the first growers in the late 1930s when he acquired a 140acre farm at Main Arm in the hills behind Mullum. [The bookies favour the Kytherian brothers-in-law, Mick Manuel Psaltis and George Zakarias Souris, as the first Greeks into the NSW banana industry when they planted out a portion of their 250acre coastal farm at Bundagen, near Coffs Harbour, in early 1927. If anyone can dispute this, Peter would be happy to hear from you.]

Archie arrived in Mullum in 1926 to acquire the Samios Bros cafe and over the following years became a high profile and outspoken personality throughout the Northern NSW region and beyond. During the war, when the region became a touch paranoid over ‘aliens’ and it wasn’t safe to speak with a funny accent, there was a flurry of ‘alien’ letters to the local rags, amongst them one drafted by Archie, but signed by his mate Joe Vlismas. Why it came out under Joe’s name can now only be determined through a séance. An excerpt:

"…I would further like to point out to these Gentlemen that before Aliens are permitted to enter Australia they must prove themselves to be good and capable citizens… This does not apply however, to the persons born in Australia who may be criminals, loafers or otherwise undesirable persons and yet have the privilege of remaining in the country whether they are prepared to assist in defending it or bettering its interests or not." Crikey.
"There are some persons who claim that aliens (particularly Greeks) have the best cafes, hotels and so on. This may be so but to the Gentlemen who elaborate on this point I would say that the Greeks … make a success of the businesses to which they apply themselves. I would further point out that the secret of success in the Businesses mentioned is work, work and again work, and I doubt whether some of the Gentlemen who are levelling criticisms at the aliens – and particularly the Greeks – know what work is." Strewth!

The letter was published in The Mullumbimby Star on Anzac Day 1941 and the next day in the regional paper, The Northern Star, which a couple of days later decreed that "This correspondence is now closed"! Arch and Joe's full frontal assault had done the trick, as thereafter overt alien bashing, at least for the Greeks, mostly went underground.

An exception occured a week later when Archie was front-page news after being assaulted at his cafe by a couple of high-spirited lads. It seems the motive was revenge by proxy. One said "… you ----- Greek, we had a bashing at Murwillumbah from the Greeks and we’re going to have revenge on you Greek------." Arch managed to call the cops, who got there before too much damage was done, prompting one of the boyos to add: "I’ll get even with you for this, you ----- Greek ------, you wait." [When he got clarity back Arch tried to apply that dubious Greek contrivance, logic, to make sense of the senseless.] Two weeks after that Joe Vlismas was also front page news when he was assaulted out at his farm at Main Arm by his employee of a few days, a professional boxer and a monster over 6 feet weighing in at over 15 stone. It seems the (official) motive was a dispute over pay and compensation for a cut finger. The monster also made the usual disparaging remarks about Greeks but added a personal slur which got up Joe’s nose: "You’re the worst class of Greeks I’ve ever met, especially yourself; you are a mug-lair’." Said Joe: "I am not a mug-lair, but I’d rather be a mug-lair than a b-------y swaggy like you." Oh dear. Then one thing led to another.

Archie subsequently got more subtle and changed his approach by joining the Country Party, substantially assisting in the re-election of Mr Anthony MHR, the founder of the Banana Growers Federation and patron of most of the local RSL clubs, which were the leading anti-alien agitators on the North Coast. Archie assisted on many occasions with money and physical electioneering, winning Mr Anthony’s personal appreciation with letters of commendation.




Below are some more condensed excerpts on Archie. [Many thanks to John Caponas for access to his father's diaries.]

Archie was 13yrs old when he sailed into Sydney in 1912 with a group of 25 other young Kytherians, amongst whom were 13yr old Alex and 9yr old Milton Samios later of Mullum, being escorted by Peter Kosma Frilingos (Freeleagus). Within three days of arrival Arthur Anastasios Samios, the first Kytherian into Murwillumbah in 1905, put him on the coastal steamer for Coffs Harbour (aka Samiosville) where he met up with his brother, Charles (Evriviadis) Caponas, who was working for Arthur Emmanuel Samios. Sixteen months later Charles bought the business in partnership with Ioannis Emmanuel Samios, but due to the usual Greek dispute over wages Archie moved onto Sydney. However, he only stayed a few months before wandering off to Murbah, where he worked for his Aroney in-laws, and thence to Brisbane and Boonah where he worked for the Freeleagus Bros. He returned to Sydney in 1918 and spent a few years in the Kings Cross Café belonging to his future brother-in-law, John Dimitrios Psaltis, who married his sister Evridiki in Sydney in 1920. In 1924, after brief interludes at Kempsey working for Anastasios Samios and back at Coffs Harbour working for Mick Nick Feros, he and Charles bought Loosan’s Café in partnership with John and Nick Psaltis and Basil and Alex John Feros, the earlier Mullumbimby cafe owners. [In the meantime he taught himself to play the violin and became a member of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra after graduating from the Sydney Conservatorium. Later in Mullumbimby he became a music teacher, adding another string to his wide-ranging entrepreneurial repertoire.] Loosans was a monster of a place and in 1927 was the venue for the wedding reception of Cosma Vasilios Psaltis and Maria Frilingos at which over 500 guests were easily seated. It became a victim of the Depression however, and went belly up around 1929.

Fortunately Archie had sold out of the partnership in 1926 and with about £600 in his pocket had hit the road, scouting out business opportunities around Brisbane, Tweed Heads and Murbah, before eventually deciding that the newsagency at Mullum provided the best option. Within 2 days of arriving in town however, his old shipmate, Alex Dimitrios Samios, made an offer he couldn’t refuse; £2900 for his café business on a walk in/walk out basis, which was £200 less than the asking price for the newsagency next door. But then the Depression descended with a vengeance. Bananas hit rock bottom, the timber industry collapsed and butter slipped to around 6d a pound, all compounded by the big drought of 1925/26. Customers dried up with the jobs and through to 1930 Archie made no more than £12 a week, but he stayed afloat through entrepreneurial flair, marketing skills and toughness, and by early 1934 had managed to pay Alex Samios the balance of the principal and accrued interest. He became a well-known businessman in Mullumbimby over many years, opening an electrical store in Dalley Street, establishing a Main Arm banana farm and acquiring property in Brunswick Heads along the way.

Sometime in late 1934 Archie’s main competitor, Con Specis at the nearby Mullumbimby Café, went bust and Archie seems to have taken over for a song. He then gutted the place and organised a ginormous auction flogging everything, including the marble counter, maple tables with inlay tops, padded chairs, show cases, art deco mirrors and a host of other luxury and minor items down to the lino on the floor, 'from the most up-to-date cafe on the North Coast' according to his advert. A tragic end to a classic example of art deco cafe design of the period.

He then rented the place as a junk shop, which was run by a couple of steptoes until resurrected as Blyth’s Café just before the war. It was a sixty seater at this time and became the favourite hangout for military personnel during the war. It was also the venue for a lot of the RSL meetings at which solutions to the Greek menace in the banana industry were discussed. It’s a wonder Archie with his chutzpah and nose for business never offered them a group discount after Mrs Blyth was put out of business for a while when a truck smashed through her front door in late 1940. The cafe was back in Greek hands towards the end of the war.

But meanwhile, after the departure of Con Specis, Archie only had one other major cafe competitor left in town - Miss Chrissy Nelson with The Central Café in Burringbar Street, an elegant two storey establishment with a large reception room upstairs.

Miss Nelson seemed to be a tough lady and matched Archie advert for advert and innovation with innovation; when Arch purchased a new refrigerator and laid a guilt trip on everyone with his advert 'For your health’s sake only purchase from a cafe with....', she did the same; when he introduced deli items and precooked meats she followed; same with 'small goods at cost prices and less'; ditto with ‘the latest electrical preparation appliances’;... and on it went for the next two years. Miss Nelson seems to have tried to retain a posh establishment with private dining rooms while Archie went downmarket. The citizens of Mullum were well catered for but even so there still didn’t appear to be many around with money.

Miss Nelson eventually matched the downmarket strategy and thereafter her half page adverts were reduced to one-liners next to Archie’s until she fades away in about mid 1943, a few months before Arch closed his own business.

In the interim along came free-to-air broadcasting in 1936 and Arch had jumped on the bandwagon. The ABC started broadcasting from Grafton, 2LM from Lismore and 2MW from Con Vlismas’ Austral Building in Murwillumbah, and the sharks were out flogging all sorts of mickey mouse wirelesses. The agency for the best of the lot, HMV, went to E. G. Davis who featured biweekly adverts extolling the virtues of his gizmos, sometimes half a page, but never less than twelve square inches, offering the things for 31 guineas. And who should always have a square inch advert next to his also claiming status as a HMV agent? None other than A. Caponas offering HMV radios for 'a little deposit' and paid off in produce! How he got the radios is a mystery, but his marketing strategy appealed to Kriesler who offered him the sole agency for their brand in late 1936. And then he was up and running, undercutting his competitors, offering a wide variety of models and opening his electrical shop in Dalley Street a short time later.



His ‘Radio House’ later evolved into a general store from where he eventually was selling white goods, sewing machines, cutlery, crockery, records and almost everything down to the proverbial kitchen sink. He also retained his fruiterer’s licence and sold the produce from his banana farm, including the loveable choko, the Depression staple and a bargain at 1/- a dozen, over the counter. At this time he had followed his farming neighbour, the ingenious Ernie Paspalis, into small crops and was growing tomatoes and beans as well as bananas. Having his own retail outlet for this produce saved him a heap of money on freight and marketing costs, both escalating by then. How the BGF reacted to this independence is an interesting question.

At this time too, he was running a truck dealership and real estate and letting agency from the shop. He later had his fingers in many pies including the agency for Frigidaire refrigerators and Phoenix Insurance. He also saw a business opportunity in the nostalgia of his compatriots for the old country and became the biggest importer and distributor of Greek records in the region. A little later he latched onto the similar nostalgia of the rapidly growing Italian community. He travelled widely, placing his records, Greek, Italian and English, in shops all over Northern NSW and Southern QLD, becoming one of the most well known Kytherians in the land. His marketing flair came to the attention of Columbia Records who offered him the sole Australian distribution rights, but because this meant being based in Sydney he passed up the golden opportunity.

After Archie caught the radio bug and came down with the banana disease the cafe thereafter was mostly left in the hands of managers, notably the Psaltis Bros later of Burringbar. The cafe had been given an extensive makeover in 1939 in conjunction with a general refurbishment of all the shops in the Mallam’s Building and re-emerged as The Model Café. At the same time all shops in the Simpson’s Building underwent remodelling, which brought the old Mullumbimby Café back as a serious competitor.

On 14 October 1943 he placed a mysterious public notice in the paper announcing 'that owing to shortage of labour he is reluctantly compelled to close his cafe permanently…and…old customers will be given preference in the clearance of all goods.' The cafe, still trading under its new name as The Model Café, shut its doors after the last trading day on Saturday 16Oct43. At this time nearly all the cafes in the region were cutting back on opening hours due to lack of labour and increased rationing, and a few had already folded. Archie’s was the 7th long established Mullum business to close since the beginning of the war, due mostly to rationing, quotas and lack of staff, but it also implies that Mullum was missing out on the boom times being experienced by some cafes in the larger towns of the region, probably because it was off the beaten track for soldiers on R & R looking for entertainment outlets. But then, on 2Dec43, Con Harris, previously of the Macquarie Café at Wellington, placed a public notice informing one and all that he was the new proprietor of The Popular Café, under which name it has remained ever since. So Mullum escaped the dubious distinction of being the only town in the region without a Greek cafe.



Archie married a fellow Mitatan, Maria Dimitri Protopsaltis, at Armidale in 1932. Unfortunately Maria contacted TB in about 1938 and for the next 9yrs sought treatment from numerous specialists until she was hospitalised in Brisbane in 1945. She was allowed home in late 1946 and died six months later. Archie flew up The Rev Fr John Evangelinidis from Sydney to conduct the funeral service, which drew Greeks from all over for a 60 car cortege, unheard of in Mullum around this time. All his family came for the funeral, including his older brother John from America, whom he set eyes on for the very first time. Two years later Archie remarried Dionysia Pippos, the sister of Stathis Andreas Pippos of Main Arm.

In late 1960, with no end to the banana glut in sight, Archie put his Argyle Street house on the market and publicly advertised his decision to leave the district. However, the Mullum real estate market rapidly slumped and he and Dionysia postponed their retirement to Sydney until 1967, two years after he sold his farm to his lessee. In the meantime he stood for council in the elections of late 1962, but bombed out. Early the next year he became an agent for those growers who gave up on the BGF and directly consigned their bananas to the Sydney markets. In Sydney he kept his hand in the business arena by opening up a real estate agency where a lot of the banana growers listed their plantations for sale, contributing to the slow trickle, later a flood, of Sydneysiders joining the exodus to the Mullum district, by then gaining a reputation as the new Arcadia after the alternate lifestylers discovered the place.