Across the River: Remembering a favourite ‘tucker shop’

Southern Highlands historian Leonie Knapman worked there on weekends after leaving school. She remembers Charlie’s being a popular stop for politicians travelling between Sydney and Canberra.  

Young Leonie even served Prime Minister Bob Menzies once. What a neat snapshot of an egalitarian society - politicians in smart suits sitting alongside truckies wearing blue singlets, all dining together in an Aussie café run by Greeks. You can’t get more Australian than that, can you?

When I was a kid in short pants, Charlie’s Café, along with the Paragon in Goulburn and Bimbos Roadhouse at Bargo, were institutions – the three favourite tucker stops for truckies and travellers on the old Hume Highway before the days of multi-nationals running slick fast food centres.

My first glimpse of television was at Charlie’s Café when those genial Greeks, Con and Chris Contos owned the place. And weren’t they lovely blokes? 

I always looked forward to coming into town from our farm with my parents, sitting in a booth at Charlie’s Cafe and ordering a proper hot meal before they played tennis at the nearby Bluebirds courts. 

For a kid this was like walking into an Aladdin’s cave filled with lollies, ice-cream, fizzy drinks and delicious food. Pork sausages in gravy with veggies and mashed potato, accompanied by a chocolate malt milkshake, was my favourite Greek treat when the parents were shouting. Two bob’s worth of hot chips wrapped in newspaper if my mate Victor Isedale or I, had to pay.

Not long after getting married, Barbara and I went to Greece where I naturally expected hamburgers, hot chips or a mixed grill and malted milkshake to be standard Greek cuisine. Alas! We had to settle for sardines, stuffed grape leaves, octopus, sautéed lambs guts, eggplant and bloody Greek salad washed down with cheap red wine. Not a chip, hamburger, milkshake or mixed grill in sight. 

Charlie’s café was open until very late seven days a week with clean toilet facilities. No wonder this was such a popular break for weary highway travellers and truckies. 

Back in the day Mittagong’s main street didn’t have a median strip and the old Hume Highway was fairly wide at that end of town, so truckies would park in the middle of the road all the way from the clock to Pioneer Street. 

Mittagong’s first truck stop.

Many older folk will have their own memories of Charlie’s Café, but my favourite story comes from Leonie Knapman. While working there she didn’t understand why they sold so many boxes of chocolate. 

These expensive boxed chocolates went off the shelves faster than the popular old two-bob chocolates.  There had to be a reason she thought. And there was. 

It seems an enterprising young Mittagong lady had a lucrative business going with the truckies. She was all theirs for the prescribed fee - 10 bob or a box of chocolates.  No wonder Charlie’s Café did a roaring trade in boxes of Cadbury’s assorted delights.

Speaking of which, when Dudley was a young bloke he cracked on to an American stunner, who was backpacking around Australia. 

One thing led to another and Dudley fell in love. So he took her to Charlie’s Café where he told her he was serious.

“But it’s only fair I should warn you I’m a bit of a golf nut,” confessed Dudley. “I eat, sleep and breathe golf, so if that’s going to be a problem you’d better tell me now.”

The very good looking young American lady took a deep breath.

“Since we’re being honest with each other,” she sheepishly confessed, “you need to know that I’m a Hooker.”

Dudley just sat there silently poking aimlessly at his mixed grill then looked her in the eye.

“It’s probably because you’re not keeping your wrists straight when you tee off.”