Stanmore’s Iconic Olympia Milk Bar To Be Restored

Nearly eight years after its closure, Parramatta Road’s iconic Olympia Milk Bar in Stanmore may have a second lease of life.

Local businessman Paul Barone lodged a development application with the Inner West Council in November, which details plans for an almost million dollar renovation.

Described as “a rare largely intact survivor of a 1930s-1960s suburban milk bar” in the heritage impact statement accompanying the development application, Olympia was closed by the council in 2017 over safety concerns. Its previous owner, Nicolas Fotiou, lived onsite until 2021, diligently caring for the last surviving link to Sydney’s Greek-led milk bar culture. Fotiou died in 2023, having run the Olympia for almost six decades.

Barone appears to be focused on repair over replacement. The renovation includes an upmarket four-bedroom residence above the bar, a new second floor with a roof terrace, and repairs to the shopfront and interior, including the restoration of the milk bar’s counter.

“I genuinely want to bring it back to how it was and hopefully show that the milk bar still has a future in Sydney,” he told The Daily Telegraph in 2024.

The Olympia remains beloved my many, years after its closure

Although it’s been over sixty years since the bar was first purchased, and almost ten since it closed, the Olympia holds a very special place in many hearts both local and a little further afield.

A 2014 documentary by Joshua Brogan explores the reverence held by many Inner West locals, to whom the Olympia represents a ghost of Sydney as it used to be.

A Facebook group, the Olympia Milk Bar Fan Club, was created in 2007 and is still active, with over seven thousand members sharing memories and news of the site.

Co-author of Greek Cafés & Milk Bars of Australia and social historian and curator at Macquarie University, Leonard Janiszewski, told the Sydney Morning Herald that the milk bar is still very unique.

“The Olympia was the last of its kind,” Janiszewski said. “There was no other milk bar of its vintage, in terms of when it was established and what few changes had taken place, that had been Greek-run.