Restoration of Gundagai's historic Niagara Cafe takes out prestigious prize at 2023 Heritage Awards

Niagara Cafe owners Luke Walton and Kym Fraser took out the President's Prize in the 2023 Heritage Awards last week.

After purchasing the 121-year-old Greek cafe at the height of the pandemic in 2020, the duo set about a major restoration project.

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"It was an incredibly huge surprise to be awarded the honour," Mr Walton said.

He added that it was "very good recognition" of the work put into the project.

While not from Gundagai themselves, the Sydney-based owners have had a long association with the town on their trips to Melbourne.

"We've been familiar with the cafe for about 30 years and we've always been fond of the art deco fitout," Mr Walton said.

"It was a place we would call in on to see whether it was still there whenever we did the trip."

As time wore on, the cafe closed and while it went on the market, nothing seemed to be happening.

"It had been closed for a couple of years and we became curious," he said.

"We [eventually] got hooked on the idea of not just preserving the place but getting it back up and running.

"It's very rare to find a cafe of this significance and age that is in salvageable condition with a lot of the original fixtures from what would have been a very big and grand fitout in 1938."

Restoration works took about 12 months and involved restoration of an original glass and chrome counter, mirrors and more.

"The main glass and chrome counter was probably at least five metres long," Mr Walton said.

The project also saw the restoration of a half-dome roof destroyed by fire in the 1970s.

"From that time on it had a panel suspended ceiling, but once we started peeling back the layers...we decided it was really important to reinstate it," he said.

"During the space age... an artist had painted stars and rocket ships on it, but that was all lost in the [fire]."

Another significant feature to be restored was the metres-long blue and white "Cafe Niagara" neon sign above the cafe.

"It was quite tough to find someone prepared to restore that and do it the old fashioned way, not with LED [lights]," Mr Walton said.

But eventually they secured a company for the job, who reinstated the glass lettering and restored it to working condition.

Niagara Cafe also holds the title of oldest continuously run Greek cafe in Australia, however its current owners are starting a new trend.

"We are the first non-Greek owners," Mr Walton said.

He said there once used to be a Greek cafe in many regional Australian towns, a point that many customers keep bringing up.

"Visitors come in and say they had a cafe like this in all sorts of towns," he said.

"But once pubs started serving food and fast food places appeared along highways, they kind of died out and there aren't many still in existence."

Since the cafe reopened last year, it has welcomed many visitors including some with memories of visiting the cafe well over half a century ago.

"Just a couple of weeks ago a gentleman came in for a milkshake and said his grandfather had bought him one there 70 years ago," Mr Walton said.

"[On another occasion, we had] a lady from Adelaide [come in and] tell us the last time she was there was 60 years ago and she [also] had a milkshake."

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