1951 - 2001

For more than 50 years, Bondi had a particularly famous a milk bar run by the two Bates families. It was at 124 Campbell Parade and wrapped around the corner into Hall Street, opposite the Hotel Ravesis, which is still standing.

Brothers George and Nickolas Bagiatis established it in 1951 and operated it till 2001 with their wives Mary and Chryssanthe (Chris). ‘Bates’ is the anglicised version of ‘Bagiatis’. The two families kept the popular milk bar open seven days a week, often till late at night.

In the mid-20th century, a full-fat diet wasn’t considered a health risk, and George and Nickolas remember having a steady stream of beach goers order the shop’s famous choc-malt milkshake and patrons order a mixed grill any time between breakfast and dinner.

The milk bar was already operating when the Bates bought it shortly after arriving in Sydney. In the early 1960s, they installed several wooden booths that cradled pink Laminex–topped tables and sat beneath distinctive mirrors that scenes of bathers and the beach were etched into.

Except for making minor alterations in 1969, the brothers retained the early ‘retro chic’ décor – the original slushie (fruit-crush) machines, the traditional milk fridge bearing stainless-steel ice-cream scoops and metal milkshake containers, the glass shelves stocked with confectionery and the chequered-lino flooring – till the last transactions in 2001, when family members were still ringing up sales on a manual cash register that had pride of place on the yellow-laminate counter.

On that final day of trading, the Bates Milk Bar had the distinction of being Bondi Beach’s longest-existing shop. The closure was widely mourned and frequently described as the end of an era or the end of the old Bondi. The Bates families reported that when news got out that the doors would be closing for the last time, former customers travelled from throughout New South Wales to say goodbye, and many brought their children to show them the stomping ground the “olds” had favoured as teenagers. Part of the era of the latter half of the 20th century ended with the death of George Bates in July 2011.

In recognition of the Bates Milk Bar’s status as one of Sydney’s last-remaining old-style beach milk bars, the Powerhouse Museum is preserving some of the shop’s distinctive interior décor.

Courtesy the Waverley Library Local Studies Collection and the Museum of Applied Arts and Science.