Business: Mixed Business/Fruit and Vegetables (Malouf)

Story

In 1904, Salim Malouf sought naturalization so he could buy land, but it was almost a decade later that he and Alice (Annisse) achieved their goal. Built in 1913, the two-story building at 190 Melbourne Street South Brisbane was a fruit shop, and later a convenience store and milk bar, with the family residence upstairs. By all accounts, it was the women in the family who kept the business going:

…once the grandparents died, my mother and her sister, Marian used to take it in turns…we used to spend three months…at our own home, and three months at the shop and we lived above the shop to help out our maiden aunt.

In regards to the shop, Annette, a granddaughter, remembers:

They used to have it like a milkshake place and make milkshakes and I used to do all of that. They had a spare room at the side and all the veggies used to come in big canvas bags, onions and potatoes. And they were…very good to local people who were a bit hard up; they used to have a book that they would write down, you know, the purchases and sometimes my grandmother wouldn’t worry about if they couldn’t afford to pay.

Paul Ganim who frequented the shop as a young boy recalled Annie Malouf running the shop and allowing them ‘the run of the shop. We could go in if we wanted an ice-cream. We’d pay for it but we could do our own ice-cream’. When the Malouf business closed in 1969, the store had, for almost 60 years, ‘served as an important gathering place for South Brisbane residents, and in particular, to members of the Lebanese community who frequented the shop’.

However, the Mageros family, who were Greek, bought the business in 1969 and it operated as a mixed business and takeaway store until 1980. The family also lived on top of the shop. When they took over, ‘ the shop had a red public phone, jukebox, sub-newsagency, fish and chips, mini-delicatessen, sandwich bar, milk bar, extensive chocolate and sweets stand, as well as a fairly large grocery section. The fruit and veg part of the store was relegated to a corner at the front but, by the time we’d sold the shop, this had gone and was replaced by pinball and space invaders machines’ .

References

Brisbane City Council Heritage Register, 2015. ‘Malouf’s fruit shop and residence (former)’, http://heritage.brisbane.qld.gov.au/heritage_register/placeDetail.do?action=read&placeId=1546

Margaret Casalaina and Annette Litzow, interview with Anne Monsour , Brisbane, 2019.

NAA: A1, 1916/17316, Salim Hanna Malouf– Naturalisation.

Queensland Post Office Directories to 1949

Queensland Telephone Exchanges 1923 Brisbane City Council Heritage Register 2015. ‘Malouf’s fruit shop and residence (former)’. http://heritage.brisbane.qld.gov.au/heritage_register/placeDetail. do?action=read&placeId=1546

Michael Mageros email communication with Anne Monsour, April 2023.