Langleys - One of the few traditional Milkbars

Jim Castrissios on the left, Minas Castrissios on the right.

The Daily Examiner, Grafton. Tuesday June 13, 1989, page 9.

Grafton's longest established traditional Aussie Milk Bar and Cafe has a cultivated air of yesterday about it.

Olde-style heavy ribbed glasses are still used to serve milk shakes and fresh fruit juices, flavourings for milk drinks are all “home made” and prepared on the premises, as are the 50 different sorts of cakes that are sold there.

Brothers Minas and George Castrissios who own Langleys Cafe in Prince St like it that way.

“We don’t use ready-made mixes. We like to know what is going into the things we sell,” the brothers explain.

That’s the sort of attention to detail and pride in their reputation that has kept the cafe busy and the customers happy for just on 50 years.

Minas and George are nephews of the Langley brothers, Nick and Jim who bought the Prince St business about 1940.

The Langley family had been in Australia since about 1911.

The family was based in Sydney, and in 1921 Jim came to Grafton with his cousin Then Aroney, to set up a cafe in Prince St.

The arrival was not auspicious. The city was in flood, the cafe premises on the site now occupied by Grafton Health and Bulk Food Store, along with the rest of it.
About 1925 or 26 the partnership broke up. Theo Aroney and his brother Jim retained the Grafion cafe, and Jim Langley brought his brother Nick from Sydney to set up in a cafe business in South Grafton.

They traded initially in premises on the south side of Skinner St., later moving across the Ianeway to the cafe premises now operated by Bailey’s Cafe.

In 1940 the Langley brothers bought the four year old Strand Cafe in Prince St and changed the name to Langleys.

For about a decade the brothers operated both businesses, Nick mostly in Grafton, and Jim on the south side.

The South Grafton business was sold in 1950.

Minas and George Castrissios, whose mother was a sister of the Langleys spent their youth on the island of Kythera.

They came to Australia as teenagers, Minas in 1948, and younger brother George, four years later.

Minas started his “apprenticeship” in the cafe business at the South Grafton shop, moving to Grafton when that business was sold.

For some years he was one of the bakers supplying the cake shop which was an important component of the cafe trade.

“We worked more than our 40 hours a week out there,” he recalled this week.
As well as the 50 dilierent sorts ot cakes, there were sausage rolls and pies, at least 10 dozen every day of the kind that the brothers boast proudly, are still the best in town.

Today there are two, and sometimes three employees in the bakehouse, which has supervised the training of six apprentices over the years

The brothers agree that much of the cate’s image has deliberately been retained “as it was”.

But some things certainly have changed. The kitchen and bakehouse have been modernised and in 1963 Langleys became only the second cafe on the North Coast, and one of the first businesses in Grafton to he air-conditioned.

The fresh trout juices that were once the cafe’s main stock in trade have given way to canned, pre­packaged drinks that now account for 60 percent of drink sales.

That’s one change the brothers don’t altogether regret . . . they can still recall Jacaranda Sundays when the two of them spent the whole day squeezing oranges for the eafe.

Takeaway food is also now a big part of their trade, ".....in the old days, you only sold food to be taken out of the cafe as a favour to a good friend,” recalls Minas.

But by and large customers still like the same kinds of food that were popular 50 years ago . . . although nowadays they might eat their pies, grills, and sandwiches with a capuccino coffee rather than a cup of tea.

The business has a stall oh about a dozen and some of the waitresses have been with the brothers for years. “It seems they stay a long time, or they don’t last long at all,” Minas explained. ‘I suppose it is that we like things done the right way. If the job isn’t done the way they are told to do it, it isn’t done at all.”

The Castrrssios’ first principle in business is “giving value for money - we never charge like a wounded bull”; and it’s a principle generations of valley people have come to appreciate.

Today’s changing lifestyle has meant changes for the typical Oz Cafe, too. The big sale days, when farmers came to town los the sales in the morning, shopping in the afternoon and lunch at Langleys in between, are a thing of the past. People are more mobile and trips to town shorter and more frequent.

Jacaranda is still the busiest time of the year, although it has been marred somewhat in recent years by drunkenness.

“In the old days people used to get drunk at Jacaranda time and they were happy. These days they get drunk and start fighting,” the brothers agree.

No mall in Prince St is their first priority.

A supermarket in the main Street comes close behind, along with regrets that the town has suffered by being divided into three separate shopping areas.

For those who disparage that Grafton "never changes" they point out that less than a handful of the business people who worked in the main street when they came to Grafton, are still there today.

It’s been a long time since the iast meeting of the “Sunshine Club”, the group of Prince St businessmen and friends, who used to gather before store opening time each morning, in the summer on the shady side of Prince St., and in winter on the sunny side, to talk out their plans and problems.

There was a friendliness and co­operation that is not so evident today.

With a business that is open more than 12 hours a day, and more hours before and after the doors open, cooking and cleaning, running a cafe is still hard work.

Minas’ wife Chrysi and George’s wife Hazel still take a turn with shop duties but it is unlikely their children will follow them in the business.

“That’s sad in a way, because they won’t be here to follow us, but happy too, because they will probably be doing something better,” George said. The brothers could be right, too, in their belief that before too long, businesses like Langleys Cafe will have ceased to exist.

Mass production and pre­packaging of food, along with tougher trading controls and rocketing costs, they believe, could well see the end of another Australian institution within a decade or two.