Milk Bar Milk Bar

The term MILK BAR for a corner shop is unique in Australia & New Zealand. Elsewhere milk bars are called a convenience store, corner shop, general store or 7/11.

The local milk bar was part of the local community. Parents often knew the shopkeepers names and would exchange gossip and local information. Children saw the lollies, icecreams and drinks. Some milk bars were mini supermarkets. I remember buying fireworks (crackers and penny bangers) from a milk bar in Richmond.

In 2022 there are still milk bars operating in suburbs but nowhere near the number found in 1960-1980. Today they have morphed into modern convenience stores, coffee shops, cafes,

Wikipedia says: In Australia, a milk bar is a suburban local general store. Similar terms include tuck shops, delicatessens or "delis", and corner shops or corner stores (although by definition these are different establishments). Milk bars are traditionally a place where people pick up newspapers, and fast-food items like fish and chips and hamburgers, and where people can purchase milkshakes and snacks. They are essentially a smaller scale suburban form of the convenience store but are more likely to be "mum and dad" small business and not larger franchised operations.

History

Originally, milk bars in USA were pubs or alcohol outlets (bars) that also sold convenience items. By the late 1940s, milk bars sold ready-made food and non-alcoholic drinks. Milk bars often included jukeboxes, pinball machines, tables and chairs.

Milk bars in Australia and New Zealand sold milk, bread, ice creams, lollies, chocolate bars, soft drinks, cigarettes and fast food.

The slow death of the milk bar in Australia

Courtney Allan (oversixty.com.au) says milk bars are dying a slow death.

The milk bar, convenience store or local deli used to be a staple for suburbs around Australia, but they are dying a slow death.

For decades, families would flock to get lollies, ice-cream, fresh milk or bread or to pick up the daily newspaper.

These days are all over. This is thanks to supermarkets, petrol stations and on-demand smartphones that have suffocated the market.

"The milk bar really hasn't just shut up shop overnight, it's been happening for at least 40 years, but now it's pretty rapid," said Eamon Donnelly, the author of a coffee table book documenting Australian milk bars to The New Daily.

"I'll see real estate listings for old milk bars on a weekly basis now. They just can't sustain the business - the rents are huge and if you don't have that traffic and customer base then it's really difficult to see it surviving."

Many old milk bars have been converted into homes or cafes, and Mr Donnelly said that for millions of Australians, a trip to the corner store was a part of growing up.

"Milk bars were a treasure trove or an Aladdin's cave of lollies, sweets and ice creams and colour - that's the thing everyone remembers," he recalled.

"It was that first taste of independence. It was the first place many people bought something of their own. It's such a vivid Australian memory, going up to the milk bar on a Saturday with your friends and getting a couple of ice-creams and just hanging out for hours and hours, before social media and before phones."

The first milk bar was set up in Martin Place, Sydney back in 1932. It was a very glamorous experience, according to Mr Donnelly.

"Instead of selling sodas he'd sell milkshakes and hence why he called the business a milk bar - they'd sell milkshakes and you're served on a bar," Mr Donnelly said.

"It was very Hollywood style. It was really glamorous.

"Then all of these little corner stores in the suburbs thought, 'We'll sell milkshakes as well and we'll put "milk bar" on the business'.

"Seventy years later, milk bar is just part of the vernacular now - we still call that little shop a milk bar even though you can't get a milkshake anywhere.

"A lot of people think that the milk bar was named after the place where you just go and get your milk."

Mr Donnelly has said that milk bars have always had strong ties to immigrant communities.

"It was a way to get that migrant food culture into Australia," he said.

"Before milk bars, the Greeks used to buy olive oil from the chemist - it was medicinal.

"They offer money transfers now, dry cleaning - a lot of the signage is being updated to other languages."

However, oil and gas giants have funds that the lowly milk bar just don't have.
"We've seen the large oil companies take the lead in terms of reinventing convenience," said Jeff Rogut, CEO of the Australasian Association of Convenience Stores.

"They've continued to reinvent the model, continued to upgrade stores and, importantly, upgrade facilities and the products offered inside stores."

"We've seen a demise nationally of the true community corner store," he said.

"Many kept doing all the things they've been doing all the years, with stores that had not been upgraded, front windows plastered with phone card posters, dusty-styled dingy-type outlets, not opening extended hours.

"They really had to become smarter. They had to become more professional retailers - they couldn't really rely on the old [method of] standing behind the counter and hoping people would cross their doorstop.

"It's about continually innovating and changing the business - should I be selling coffee, offering fresh pastries, freshly baked bread, things like that, that will actually get people to the store."

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❊ Web Links ❊

➼ Milk Bar 

❊ Also See... ❊

➼ Good Times Milk Bar

➼ Milk Bar Mag

➼ Over60 | Australian Seniors Portal






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