Katoomba's iconic Greek Café asks for help

News / Community

Katoomba’s State Heritage listed Paragon Cafe, once known for its fine food, confectionery and beautiful Art Deco interiors, sadly closed its doors in 2018 for urgently needed remediation work resulting from water damage. With work slow to progress, a petition was organised to ensure essential maintenance and conservation work is undertaken

Friends of Katoomba’s State Heritage listed Paragon Cafe. Photo: National Trust Australia (NSW) Facebook

Leonard Janiszewski 20 August 2023 4:22pm

This nationally renowned, iconic Greek café celebrated its centenary in 2016. For most of that time, the Simos family established, developed and operated the Paragon.

In 2023 this iconic “Greek Restaurant” and Blue Mountains legend, asked for help. Closed and deteriorating, the Heritage listed property has been awaiting restoration works for over five years.

Concerned citizens have raised a petition to Trish Doyle MP, Member for Blue Mountains, calling on the Minister for the Environment and Heritage to intervene.

The Paragon legacy

True to its name, this food-catering institution was unquestionably one of the finest examples of the Greek café phenomenon of twentieth century Australia – featuring high Art Deco architectural styles and furnishings created by renowned architects, designers and artists coupled with an reputation for high-quality custom made chocolates and pastries, the Paragon became the embodiment of a by-gone era of popular dining.

The enterprise’s development during the twentieth century evidences the full evolution of the Greek café in Australia with its influences from America. Established by Jack (Zacharias) Theodore Simos in 1916 as the ‘Paragon Café and Oyster Palace’, it soon acquired a speciality for American-style confectionery and ice cream – by 1921 (the year that Jack was naturalised), the store was being advertised as the ‘Paragon Sundae and Candy Shop’. Jack’s brothers, George and Peter, assisted with chocolate and confectionery manufacturing and baking. With the fitting of a soda fountain, American-made freezers for ice cream and milk, and a number of major architectural renovations, Jack’s goal was to develop the Paragon into a high-class food-catering enterprise.

Katoomba’s ‘Orphan Rock’, a geographical outcrop, became the business’s logo, representative of the ‘stand-alone’ commercial excellence to which Jack aspired. In achieving this aim, he was well assisted through the collaborative efforts and guidance of his wife, Mary (née Maria Panaretos), who had been born in Elkton, Maryland, USA, where her parents ran a café. Jack was originally from the island of Kythera (Cerigo) in Greece, as were Mary’s parents. Mary was fifteen years younger than her husband, having been born in the year Jack arrived in Australia – 1912. The couple were married in 1930 in the United States, following an overseas trip Jack had taken to Europe, inclusive of Kythera, where they initially had met.

In December 1922 the Paragon was hailed in The Blue Mountain Echo as ‘the acme of good taste and modern ideas… presented by an enterprising proprietary that believes in nothing but the best’. In 1926 a major remodelling was undertaken by shopfitters Harry and Ernest Sidgreaves – the main front room was enlarged, a new marble soda fountain and glass shelving were installed, decorative wall panels erected and new lights fitted.

Eventually, utilising theatre architect Henry Eli White during the 1930s, the Paragon boasted a ‘modern’ banquet hall (with a pre-Columbian influence in its plaster frieze motifs), a ball room/dining room referred to as the ‘blue room’ (featuring the American Art Deco ‘ocean liner style’ and a sprung dance floor), a chocolate and ice cream factory (with machinery imported from the United States, Britain and France), a bakery (with a electric dumb waiter) and a front dining area decorated after World War II with carved alabaster friezes depicting figures from Greek mythology (including Zeus, Chiron the Centaur, Apollo, the Flight of Icarus and the Judgement of Paris) by Danish sculptor, Otto Steen.

The Paragon’s interiors remain, as they were when they were conceived and constructed, unique in Australian food-catering architecture: an unmatched combination of different Art Deco styles in its public eating and entertainment areas, supported by pragmatically well-designed, multiple, commercial food preparation spaces.

In 1975 the Paragon was listed by the National Trust in NSW and in 1977, it was placed on the Australian Heritage Commission’s Register of the National Estate. Almost four decades later in 2015, it secured recognition on the NSW Heritage Register.

Jack died in 1976, but Mary continued to manage the business for another eleven years. She passed away in 2001, survived by two daughters, Areanthe and Anna and one son, Theodore (who became a judge of Supreme Court of New South Wales and represented the British Government in the famous Spycatcher case).

In 2003 the business and building were sold separately and Barbara Allatt acquired the café with the aim of reviving its commercial potential. However, fierce local competition from a plethora of modern cafés tempered Allatt’s initial ambition. By 2007, she soon considered that the Paragon’s long-term future was unpredictable:

“I bought the café [business]… from Bruce and Joan Gavin – he had a heart attack. They bought it from the Simos family in 2000… I’m giving myself another two years here, which is sad, because I take pride in my work… The last five years have been difficult. Without the chocolates, the restaurant would not survive.”

In 2011, the Paragon was taken over by Robyn Parker. Her aim was to restore the café back to its 1920s – 1930s heyday.