The Scrivener: Pinewood Shopping Centre - 3
…Pinewood shopping centre has a wonderful assortment of nationalities among the owners or managers of its shops. At least five businesses are owned by Italians. A rotisserie chicken shop and the newest coffee house are Greek. A Cambodian family runs the greengrocery business. An Egyptian chap runs the picture frame shop. There's an Indian café and take-away. One of the better restaurants is Vietnamese. Another is, I think, Lebanese. As far as I can work out, at least six businesses are run by Chinese owners…
Brian Barratt delights in the cosmopolitan atmosphere of his local shopping centre.
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Who Moves Where
Let's put Pinewood into perspective. The Melbourne (Australia) metropolitan area has a population of over 3.5 million in an area of 8,000 sq km (about 3,000 square miles). The City of Monash is a suburban Council which administers a population of nearly 170,000. Mount Waverley, the suburb where I live, is part of the City of Monash. It's about 20km east of Melbourne city centre. Pinewood shopping centre, just a short distance along the 6-lane road round the corner from our quiet crescent, is a microcosm of the changing pattern of shops and shopping in Melbourne.
Melbourne used to have the largest Greek population of any city in the world outside Athens. About 30 years ago, when I worked for a large educational supply company, a colleague asked me to do a little job for him. It wasn't in my department but I was apparently regarded as the diplomat of the company. He asked me to negotiate with the owners of various premises he rented each year for seasonal back-to-school shops.
During this process, I discovered that nearly every fish and chip shop and greengrocer (fruit and vegetable shop) in the area was owned by either a Greek or an Italian family. The fact that one nice gentleman grabbed me by the collar and threatened me is not part of this story, but I had to use my diplomatic skill to get out of that situation.
Pinewood shopping centre has a wonderful assortment of nationalities among the owners or managers of its shops. At least five businesses are owned by Italians. A rotisserie chicken shop and the newest coffee house are Greek. A Cambodian family runs the greengrocery business. An Egyptian chap runs the picture frame shop. There's an Indian café and take-away. One of the better restaurants is Vietnamese. Another is, I think, Lebanese. As far as I can work out, at least six businesses are run by Chinese owners. One of the Chinese restaurants has been there since I arrived in the area 37 years ago.
A couple of years ago, chatting to a lady I met at Pinewood, I commented on the delightful Cambodian family who sell fruit and vegetables. Her response astonished and dismayed me — 'I'm a racist. As far as I'm concerned, they can all go back to where they came from'. I wonder how she copes with the fact that the Lord Mayor of Melbourne is Chinese, the Mayor of Monash is Greek, and our local Monash councillor has an Indian surname?
About one-third of people in the Melbourne metropolitan area speak a language other than English at home. The largest groups are Chinese, Vietnamese, Greek and Italian. Pinewood shopping centre reflects the fact that over 34% of people in the City of Monash come from non-English speaking backgrounds. 40% were born overseas. The number of people who speak Mandarin or Cantonese is now more than those who speak Greek. These statistics are influenced by the number of overseas students at Monash University. The figures for Mount Waverley itself are 27% with non-English speaking backgrounds and 33% born overseas.
We are fortunate that Italians, Greeks, Chinese and so many others have brought with them their cultures and their food. In my occasional surveys of who does what at Pinewood, I've been particularly interested in the fact that it seems to have become a 'food centre'.
Car parking areas are well occupied every evening — there are six high quality restaurants including Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, and Lebanese with a chef from Yorkshire. Between noon and 2pm, it's difficult to find a parking place at all. A large office block, built in recent times, and nearby expanding light industrial sites, provide a steady stream of younger folk looking for lunch. There are about 15 cafés and take-away food shops plus two hot bread bakeries.
30 years ago, about 22% of the shops were cafés, take-aways or hot bread bakeries. By 2002, with around 50 shops, the figure had risen to about 40% of the total. That percentage has not risen. In 2008, with about 55 shops, it's still 40%. My statistics are approximate but they seem to reflect an increase through the 1980s which might now have settled down.
Shops for women's and men's clothing, hardware, shoes, and office supplies have come and gone, concurrent with the opening and expansion of large all-under-one-roof shopping centres. Pinewood wasn't quite the right place for an art gallery, swimming pool supplies, computers, and photocopying. But it's certainly the place for food.
The camera shop closed down several months ago. It was probably hit by the sudden rise of digital photography. The double shop is still vacant. That's the longest time a shop has been vacant at Pinewood. It isn't in a very good position to be a food outlet, but we wait with interest to see who moves in. Will it be a Korean restaurant with a chef from Lancashire? My quiet observation of the microcosm that is Pinewood will continue.
© Copyright Brian Barratt 2008
