Grand Opening Day - An Invitation

On 6th November 1934 Lockhart's new cafe "The Blue Bird" opened its doors.  It had been trading since 1906 as "The Marathon Oyster Bar and Saloon", "The Marathon Stores" and "Peterson's Cafe".  They were all precursors to the cultural icon of the Greek Cafe and were mixed businesses selling meals, fresh fruit and vegetables, grocery items such as tobacco and kerosene, confectionery, cold drinks and smallgoods.  Peter Veneris and Tony Matis had operated "The Paragon Cafe" across the road in Green Street since the early 1920s.  They took on the bigger cafe which had always been Greek run and decided to modernise.

Renovations and refurbishments were made to the building including new plate glass windows, a kitchen extension and realigning the roof.  Painters and decorators were called in and the doors were opened on Saturday 6th November to "The Blue Bird" now selling American style ice creams, sodas, milkshakes and its very own orange ale.  The Blue Bird quickly became Lockhart's premier cafe and sundae shop after its proprietors Peter Veneris (senior) and Tony Matis, offered first day's gross takings to the Wagga Hospital.

Eighty years on Roger and I are marking the date with a small celebration of our own.  We are opening our doors between 2 and 4 pm on Thursday 6th November for a celebratory afternoon tea and in tribute to the original proprietors, we are donating the proceeds to our local branch of The Red Cross.

So if you can join us to mark this milestone, please join us for afternoon tea.

The Booths are Back in Town

See, just like we promised at the start, the Blue Bird booths are finally back where they belong.  The iconic furniture takes pride of place in the cafe once again alongside the milk bar and the art deco mirrors.  Oh, you have no idea how fantastic it feels to finally be seeing our original vision come together.  It was a vision born two years ago when we looked through the grimy windows at the abandoned Blue Bird and grabbed the chance to rescue an old classic.  We saw how it could still be vibrant in a modern world, a world that had harshly dealt with most of its compatriots in towns across the country.  Somehow The Blue Bird defies the odds and lives on.

And she is looking good if I do say so.  The booth refurbishments have turned out well.  New highlights, new curves, new bling.  Our design touches are the stepped waterfall decorations under the mirrors and the diamond propellers on the ends.  We still have a bit of trim and some mood lighting to install but the new, old look is about 85% there.

The booths were unveiled at Spirit of the Land 2014.  It seems that we make a habit of revealing a new facet of the cafe at each anniversary.  It has so far been an incentive to give that extra push to complete each new stage.  The balancing act between surviving day to day, hand to mouth running a cafe and finding the time and money to complete projects has been immense.  Especially as life has a habit of getting in the way.  My philosophy on life (well one of many), is that it is good to have an idea about where you are going but putting firm timelines on a plan will likely bring the heartache of failure because no one is in complete control of life.  Goals are good but I would rather be a lifelong traveller than a tourist on a bus trip.  How we got the booths back in the cafe and what we learned about ourselves along the way, is far more interesting than the project itself.

P.S.  A person sitting in an orange booth looks across at a person sitting in a green booth.  Symmetry.