Toni Risson sipping on a milkshake

with husband Glenn in the foreground.

Toni is the author of Aphrodite and the Mixed Grill, the only full length book on the Greek cafes ever published in Australia.

On the evening of the 9th April, 2011, after the Roxy Cafe was officially opened, during the 75th Anniversary Ball.

Milkshakes and strawberry and lime "spiders" (syrup + icecream + soda water) were served up to a throng of very willing customers.

Toni and Glenn have been great supporters of the Roxy "complex".


About Aphrodite and the Mixed Grill: Greek Cafés in Twentieth Century

The Greek cafe is a shared chapter in the histories of Greece and Australia. Milk bars and cafes enabled generations of Greek immigrants to establish themselves in their adopted homeland, and their shops became part of the social fabric of Australia. But that chapter is almost over.

Aphrodite and the Mixed Grill: Greek Cafés in Twentieth Century, Australia celebrates the role Greek cafés played in Australian culture. It relates stories about emigrating and buying into Greek cafe, coming to Australia as a cafe bride, growing up in a shop, and going through hard times, fun times, wartime, and day-to-day prejudice. It explains the food on a typical menu, the fate of villages on islands like Kythera, and why cafes have now all but melted into history.

The first edition was beautifully produced in a soft cover, its 200 pages are jam-packed with colour photographs of Greek cafes, including Katoomba's Paragon Cafe, Gundagai's Niagara Cafe, and the dozen predominantly Kytherian cafes that dominated the Ipswich streetscape in the 1940's and 50's.

Toni Risson is a UQP childrens author, an Ipswich historian and a University of Queensland Medallist. This book is the culmnation of’ four years of research.

A second edition will be available for purchase in early 2012.

At that time you can make enquiries by:

Contacting Toni Risson by email here: [email protected]

or phone (07) 33811525 or 0439664291

Order by sending, name, address and cheque/money order to

Toni Risson
130 Woodend Road
Woodend, 4305.

$49.50 (incl. GST)

Plus $11.00 (Postage and handling).

You can also order by contacting the Kytherian World Heritage Fund

Contact KWHF by email here

"Aphrodite and the Mixed Grill began with a small project recording the stories of three older Greek ladies whose husbands had cafés in Ipswich in the 1950s. I became so passionate about the story of the Greek café, and had such an enthusiastic response from other Greek people associated with cafés, that Aphrodite grew into a 240 A4-page book jam-packed with sepia photographs of cafés and their proprietors.

It is a high-quality production.

The Greek café is an Aussie icon and I believe that mine is the first book dedicated solely to this wonderful story."