In the early 1950s, Nick and Nina Kondelos joined a wave of migration from Greece in hopes of beginning a fresh life in Australia. Many decades later, their Brighton greengrocery is still going strong.

Brighton’s first settlers were English migrants and the suburb continued to be settled mainly by people from all over the United Kingdom. They initially set up small farms and associated businesses. As Melbourne developed into an industrial city, Brighton became attractive to business and professional people wanting a more salubrious place to live. By the 1940s it was a suburb of middle class and wealthy people who held onto their properties - and their Anglo-Saxon-Celtic lifestyle - very tightly.

Following the Second World War a shift occurred and Brighton, in line with the rest of Australia, became home to more migrants from Southern and Eastern Europe. From 1949 the Australian Government sponsored and assisted around 180,000 Greek migrants who were seeking a fresh start after the horrors of occupation by the Axis powers from 1941-45 followed by civil war from 1946-49.

Nick Kondelos was part of that migration wave, and in due course Nick and his young family became part of the Brighton story. For him it was an instant ‘connection’!

Nick left his home village on the island of Lesvos and moved to Athens to train as an electrician. However, he left college before qualifying and instead migrated to Australia. Twenty-one years old and single, Nick arrived in Melbourne in 1954, where he was placed on a train to Bonegilla migrant camp 350 kilometres away. He was not unhappy in the camp, and indeed said that they were well treated and had clean sheets and food! However, he soon left and went to Tasmania to work for the Hydro-Electric Commission. Nick recalled being handed a shovel and being told ‘digging would become his way to being wealthy’.

Nick Kondelos, late 1960s (BHS archives)

After a few months he left that job and travelled to Melbourne. Being an enterprising young man, he went to Lonsdale Street where he knew there was a large Greek community. Through these connections and with his electrical training he found accommodation and a job at the Astor television factory where they were manufacturing sets in preparation for the 1956 Olympic Games. It was here he met Nina, his future wife, who was part of a large emigration from the island of Ithaca after a devastating earthquake in 1953.

Nick adapted to his new life quickly and decided he wanted to work for himself. Nina's family had a fruit shop in South Melbourne so Nick, who had grown up around growing and cooking food with his mother, apprenticed himself and learnt all he could about running a fruit and vegetable shop. In 1960 he went with an agent to look at a green-grocers in Bentleigh, where there was an established Greek community. On their way the real estate agent took him to look at another green-grocery shop at 767 Hampton Street, Brighton. Nick bought the established business immediately and he, Nina and their first-born son, Philip moved into the dwelling above the shop.

At that time Hampton Street, Nick recalled, was ‘full of paddocks, sheds, horses and carts’ and also a fruiterer who sold produce from a horse and wagon walking around the streets. Nick’s shop was one of a small group of shops known as Dendy Village, situated between Dendy Street and Marriage Road. As well as the green-grocery, there was a butcher, a grocer, a fish shop and a wood yard among other small businesses. It had the feel of a real village, although that description was rarely used in Melbourne. Nick and Nina felt at home in this collection of shops providing food for local families.

Nick and Nina's outgoing personalities and desire to create a future for their family resulted in a business that offered carefully selected fruit and vegetables which were displayed with care. They also offered very personal service. This attracted customers and their fame quickly spread. After about three years, their landlord decided the business was so successful he would take it back. Nick said, ‘I was infuriated, so I bought the land across the road and put up a sign that said ‘new fruit market coming soon’. The landlord was scared – he didn't know how to run a fruit shop anyway – so he let me stay on. That land is now a milk-bar and fish shop.’

In those days, Nick recalled, ‘....everyone bought fruit and vegetables from their green-grocer. The fruiterers all helped each other. If one was sick, another would buy produce for them at the [wholesale] market’.

Nick Kondelos outside the family's Hampton Street shop, early 1970s (BHS archives)

The relationships Nick and Nina developed with their customers were unique – perhaps a vestige of their lives on small Greek islands. Nick even had a vegetable garden behind the shop and the produce from this was given to friends and special customers. He even managed to bring some oregano seeds from Greece, which was prohibited at the time, and grow real Greek oregano, which he introduced to them! Nina used to make Greek coffee and chat about the things that all families share – the joys and the sorrows.

Nick did not have refrigeration in the early days and he kept produce cool with ice. Everyone was served at the shop, and there was no self-service. He always picked the best produce he could, believing self-service was for the supermarkets. Nick was proud of his customers of 60 years.

When the butcher’s shop in Dendy Village was put up for sale Nick was so determined to keep it open he bought the shop and all the equipment. Over a five year period, Nick let the shop to four different butchers rent free, until it was obvious a butcher could no longer make a living there. So the premises were let in 1996 to a business providing high quality take-home food and catering for private functions. ‘Houlihans’ was and still is a vital shop in Dendy Village with close links to Nick and his love of providing good quality food in a village environment.

Even though Nick and Nina quickly learned how to fit into the very Anglo-centric community of Brighton, their 'village' values and ability to adapt to this world was a great benefit to the suburb – the shop was famous for its quality and service. Their children grew up in the local community without losing the important elements of their Greek heritage – hard work, honesty and social inclusion. Their kids were allowed to sit in the shop on bags of peas and boxes of vegetables, speak to the customers and take money from the till to buy lollies at the milk-bar. The only regret remembered by the children– being driven to school in the shop truck!

Nick Kondelos, daughter Debbie and son Theo in 2019 (Photo credit: Michaela Barca)

Nick and Nina have both died and their children now run the shop. They speak with great love and pride of their parents – how hard they worked and how, as young people growing up in such an Anglophile suburb, they often wondered if they were Greek or Australian. They decided they are ‘Australians with Greek heritage’.

It is a wonderful coincidence that following a complete renovation of the shop, the Kondelos family decided on a new name – ‘Fresh Connection’. It is a lovely pun on the quality of the food they sell, the service they offer and the amazing connections that Nick and Nina and their children brought to a small and very quiet group of shops.

 By Jennifer Raper

Originally published in BHS Journal no. 210 (Summer 2024)

Sources

• Debbie Argyropoulous, daughter of Nick and Nina who recalled their lives in email conversations.
• Theo Kondelos, son of Nick and Nina, YouTube video of Theo's eulogy at Nick's funeral.