John Williams, Treasures of Nhill & District Facebook page, Nhill Free Press & Kaniva Times

Tiffany reflects Art Nouveau, a style that included domes, arches and leadlight with motives of stylised leaves, fruit and vines.

Without question, this would have to be the old Central Café and now Nhill Pharmacy in Victoria Street.

The entrance dome is made from the finest British Lead Glass, and it is ornamented with fruit and flowers that reflect their natural colours.

The windows are of British plate glass, said to be the first in Nhill.

For this impressive entrance we have to thank a fire and Bongiorno Brothers who built the café in 1921 after their fruit and vegetable shop was gutted by a fire along with several other shops earlier in the year.

(The fire started in a shop next to the Union Hotel and spread)

During the demolition and building of their new premises, the brothers set up a temporary shop in Macpherson Street where they originally started business many years before.

Initially the new shop was known as “Bongiorno Brothers Nhill Café” and no expense was spared in its construction.

11 inch thick brick walls were plastered in white Portland Cement and set off with oak panelling and the Tasmania oak floor was covered in a thick durable lino.

The ceiling was made from Durnbestos fire proof cement and featured semi direct lighting with the interior of the café more Art Deco than Art Nouveau.

Australian timbers were used for the seating booths and shelving and the best soda fountain available in Australia was installed at the front of the café by Eckersley and Son with the milk bar counter area continuing with the leadlight theme surrounding a mirrored backdrop.

Four ceiling fans provided cooling in the summer and indoor palms with other foliage plants provided green decoration.

The décor was described as elegant and artistic with Bongiorno’s claiming there was no other cafe like it outside of Melbourne.

Those enterprising and innovative Bongies even had a public telephone installed in the café that boasted a cloakroom for customers.

Filtered rainwater came from overhead tanks and ice-cream was produced by a new electric machine.

A concrete cool room provided constant temperature for the storage of chocolates and pastries and another room out the back was designed for the ripening of fruit as the business was not only a café and tearooms, but a fruit and vegetable shop.

The Lowan Shire congratulated the Bongiorno brothers for giving Nhill such an elaborate, magnificent and costly building.

The Nhill Free Press called it one of the most palatial cafes in the provinces.

The fruit/vegetable and cafe business was in a constant battle with Ern Bound’s nearby Fruit Palace with Bound’s seemingly winning the war by taking over Bongiorno’s café/fruitshop in 1923, renaming the business ” E. Bound and Sons Café Central Fruiterers”.

Up until WW2 it remained Café Central or simply Bound’s Café and in 1945 it was supposedly “modernised” under new owners Busst and Maggs who referred to it as THE CENTRAL CAFÉ.

The Bongiorno Brothers, Bob and Tony, had been in the fruit and veg business in Nhill for 16 years, had been looking for a change and could see a future in motor vehicles.

It was a passion they had already been dabbling in as far back as 1916 when they had the Nhill agency for Buicks. Agencies to soon follow included Studebaker and General Motors after Tony visited the USA in 1923.

The enterprising Italians helped build Nhill from the early 1900s and subsequent generations expanded into numerous retail and investment enterprises in the town, even getting back into the café business with the Nelson Street Snack Bar and the Everest Restaurant in Victoria Street.

Maybe a plaque should be placed on the chemist shop frontage recognising the gift Bongiorno’s gave to Nhill in this magnificent piece of façade architecture?

See all the photos in the issue.
This article appeared in the Nhill Free Press & Kaniva Times, 31 July 2024.