Bell’s Milk Bar
Published in The Local Rag, 23 April 2024
On Thursday mornings the Indian Pacific train stops at the outback town of Broken Hill and travellers are invited on a tour; starting with scones, tea and coffee, milkshakes and spiders at Bell’s Milk Bar. A few local actors even dress up in fifties garb and perform a skit for the fascinated travellers, dancing to music on the jukebox. Many of the older train folk remark on how nostalgic the place is for them; a woman tells me the room with the booth seats takes her right back to drinking milkshakes with her siblings as a child in the fifties.
Bell’s is one of the few remaining places in Australia that has this uncanny ability to transport you to another time in the most authentic way possible. Originally a confectioner’s in 1892, its last renovation was in the 1950’s and has barely changed since. It’s been so well preserved and cared for that the back few rooms at Bell’s have even been turned into a sort of historical archive of the shop over the decades.
There’s absolutely no modern-does-retro element to the place; it’s all entirely authentic and beautifully kitsch.
Former teacher Kylie has just recently taken over Bell’s, about a month ago now. I met her while I was in town last year; I was looking for a dress to wear to an outback wedding I’d been invited to last minute, Kylie was running a vintage shop a few doors down from Bell’s at the time. While I trawled through her vintage collection she told me of her dream to own Bell’s one day; at the time she was even volunteering at Bell’s just to spend more time there.
She’d been hoping to find a way to purchase it for twelve years, and had even been collecting vintage crockery to match the store for when the time came. When she first discovered Bell’s it was owned by Jason King, a friend of hers, and who she’d told “I’m going to buy this off you one day”. She pestered him to sell her the milk bar for years, but when he finally decided to part ways with it Kylie was caring for her sick mum in Newcastle and wasn’t in a position to take over. A Gold Coast couple bought the milk bar, and Kylie expressed her intention to buy it off them should they be willing to sell. Luckily after about a year, they were, and Kylie was finally able to see her dream become a reality.
So far, running Bell’s has been everything Kylie had hoped for and more. She said it’s been a little tricky learning the ropes of running a business with no business experience - she’s been a teacher the last twenty five years, but she doesn’t mind at all because she absolutely loves it.
While most of the customers at Bell’s are tourists, the locals of Broken Hill have a strong sense of ownership of the milk bar; they come in and tell Kylie tales of the milk bar’s history, and correct her if she gets something wrong. She happily listens to and takes on their advice because she knows how important Bell’s is to the town.
When I ask her if Bell’s has any interesting quirks she didn’t know about, she tells me she knew just about all of them because she’s been obsessed with Bell’s for such a long time. However, she has noticed that Bell’s does have some regular visitors of the supernatural variety. “I am 100% convinced it’s haunted. There’s stuff that happens; sometimes the music will play up. Once my phone was in a locker in the other room, and nobody was in there, and the song Minnie The Moocher came on [Minnie was the name of the original owner of Bell’s back in the 1920s and 30s].
Sometimes things fly off shelves, or the rocking chair rocks. I think it’s a friendly ghost, and it’s probably Minnie, coming back to visit.”
As for her intentions for Bell’s, Kylie sees herself as a caretaker for the cafe and wants to be a part of the effort to preserve its history. She doesn’t plan to change much, but she said she might add a few new things to the menu.
After twelve years of dreaming, she’s just thrilled to finally be the proud owner of one of the few remaining original milk bar’s in Australia, and plans to run the cafe for many years to come.