Copyright (2004) Fairfax Community Newspapers

Milkbar family sells, and leaves you in good hands

Farewell: Peter and Bill Cassimatis have retired after running the Caringbah landmark for 36 years.

Peter is pictured front left with Bill and his wife Kathy next to him. Picture: John Veage

One of Caringbah’s landmarks,
Parry’s Milk Bar and Candy Store,
changed hands yesterday for the first
time in 36 years.
The Cassimatis family have sold what they have proudly claimed to be Sydney’s last, traditional Greek milk bar.
No fast food, a huge range range of confectionery and chocolates, milkshakes made in the old metal containers and served at a table in a glass, and coffee to die to for. Oh, and a large range of smokes, including a cigar range popular with the new dads from up the road at Sutherland Hospital.
Beyond this, the milk bar next to the
Caringbah railway steps has provided a refuge for kids who have missed trains and parents collecting them, often providing a ‘‘come and get me’’ phone service long before the days of mobiles.
Bill and Peter Cassimatis have decided to sell because, as Bill put it:
‘‘We’ve been here a while and its better to walk out than get carried out.’’
The good news is that new owners, local couples Tim and Helen Downes and Doug and Kelly Beattie, will be keeping the successful formula.
The story of the Cassimatis brothers follows the odyssey of so many Greeks after World War II. With little money and even less English, they left their home on Kythera buoyed by hope and dreams - but with the support offered by extended families with an already extensive network in Australia of the ubiquitous ‘‘Greek cafes’’.
Arriving in 1948, they lived at Murwillumbah in northern NSW,