My liquor store | Hello from the Five Star Vagabond

Flashback Sydenham Cellars

August 12, 2020 by David Herd

Flashback Sydenham Cellars

Flashback, Sydenham Cellars was the name of my liquor store from 1980 to 1985. Situated in Unwins Bridge Road adjacent to Sydenham station. The photo above was my opening night in March 1980, the gorgeous girl Debbie Don who lived near me in Drummoyne.

A closer look at Debbie.

You must admit she is very easy on the eye. 🙂

The original shop

After three years I decided to renovate & sell the business.

Let the facelift begin

Here I am with my best friend Madison.

Flashback, Sydenham Cellars

Lucky for me my best friend & his brother Wolf Wotke & Hank were bricklayers.

What an improvement

Far too classy for a downtrodden suburb like Sydenham. 🙂

Madison’s favourite spot

Perched on top of a stack beer cartons in the middle of the shop, he scared the hell out of some of the customers. 🙂

Here he was at 6 weeks old

My ex girlfriend Carol Aboud decided I needed a watch dog. 🙂

This is how it looked around 2001

A wholesale clothing shop.

I owned the business for 4 years & amassed losses of around $150,000 due to the council closing the road for 3 months each year for various roadworks.

This really destroyed any chance of me making a profit. Plus my clients were mainly purchasing cases of beer & cheap flagons of wine, both of which had very small profit margins. Looking back I should have done my homework on the demographics.

However it was not all bad news, I enjoyed a terrific lifestyle during these four years, I only worked 3 or 4 days a week & enjoyed myself the rest of the time on Sydney harbour in my 25′ Bertram. Check out my life in 1983.

Say no more, wink wink, nudge nudge.

Life was very good as you can clearly see. 🙂

I also spent 3 months in California in 1982 while my brother Warren & auntie Dorothy looked after the store. The real upside was the decision I made at the beginning to buy the actual property, the profit when I sold was about $160,000, tax free because it was before 1984.

One of my best years ever was 1982, check it out.

Then in 1984 I got engaged to a lovely lady & sold the business. See more on THIS LINK.

Many thanks for visiting my Flashback, Sydenham Cellars photo blog, who was it that said “nostalgia is a thing of the past”?

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